Police Accidentally Shoot 2 Men During Attempt to Stop Attacking Dogs: NYPD

Police accidentally shot two suspected burglars while trying to stop dogs from attacking at a street corner in Queens, according to the NYPD.

Officers were responding to Rockaway Boulevard and 128th Street in South Ozone Park at about 10 a.m. Wednesday and found two dogs attacking a 24-year-old man who turned out to be a burglary suspect, police say.

Two other men were on the scene, a 25-year-old armed with a hammer and a 27-year-old armed with a metal pipe, police said. 

When one of the police officers got out of the his vehicle, the dogs turned toward him, and the officer fired his gun, hitting both the dogs and the 24-year-old suspect and the 27-year-old man, police said.

The dogs were taken to Animal Care and Control.

The 24-year-old suspect was taken to Jamaica Hospital in stable condition, where he was treated for a gunshot wound to the left leg and a dog bite to his right shoulder.

The 27-year-old man was taken to Jamaica Hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound to his right wrist, and the 25-year-old went to the same hospital on his own to be treated for a minor injury to the right leg, police said. 

The two responding officers were taken to Jamaica Hospital for observation, and a hammer and a metal pipe were recovered from the scene. 

A witness said earlier that one of the men involved in the shooting was being evicted and his landlord had moved his belongings outside. The tenant and landlord got in some sort of argument, and the witness said that the landlord used his pit bull mix and lab in an aggressive manner. That's when the witness said the shots were fired. 

It's not clear if the burglary suspect was the tenant being evicted. 

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