Video surveillance from a Judson Place home shows that a 1‑year-old pit bull was standing still and wagging his tail when an Ansonia police officer shot him on March 3.
Police this week said it’s what happened off camera that prompted Officer Jonathan Troesser to shoot the pit bull, named Ice.
Background
Ansonia police shot Ice in the front yard of his home on Judson Place the night of March 3.
Police officers were responding to the report of a dog attack and roaming pit bull. In the 911 call, a resident said the dog had “chewed up” a person, and was loose.
When they arrived on scene, Ice was the only pit bull roaming. The dog was in the woods behind his owner’s home.
The backyard is fenced in on three sides. The fourth side is enclosed by an embankment.
Ice was able to get out of the yard by jumping up the embankment and down into a neighbor’s yard.
Ansonia police said the dog charged at them, and showed “extremely aggressive behavior.” A police report for the incident said Ice was running back and forth and couldn’t be contained by police.
But Ice was not the dog that bit the man. That dog — a mastiff named Zeus — was still inside the home, where the attack took place.
Police Chief Kevin Hale said the police officers at the scene were “faced with a rapidly evolving situation” and they had to base their actions on the information they were provided in the 911 call.
“Their actions should be judged by what they knew to be true at the exact moment in time, not what was learned later,” Hale said.
Click play on the video to hear the 911 call. Article continues after video.
A press release with department’s full statement is posted at the end of this article.
The Video
The dog’s owner, Racquel Trapp, agreed to be interviewed after the Valley Independent Sentinel found out about the incident through a Facebook page she made, called “Justice for Ice.”
On Wednesday, Trapp showed a Valley Indy reporter surveillance footage from her front porch recorded the day of the shooting.
Trapp and her husband, Paul Trapp, showed three camera angles of the incident. The videos do not have any audio.
Click play on the video at the top of this story to see a 16-second clip, which shows the moment the dog is shot, the family released to the Valley Indy.
The front yard and some of the street is visible in the videos. At about 5:30 p.m., police officers arrive at the residence, according to the videos.
The video shows officers retrieving a “snare” from the police cars to try to catch the dog.
Several minutes later, Ice can be seen running in the front yard, and stopping at the property line near the sidewalk — apparently barking at the police officers standing in the street.
He gets closer to the officers, but doesn’t leave the sidewalk.
Then Ice goes back onto the front yard. As Ice stands barking, his tail is wagging.
Right before Ice is shot, he was standing still on the front lawn, facing the opposite direction from the officers. He turns to face officers and appears to bark again, without moving from the spot where he was standing. His tail is wagging.
Then he is shot.
The bullet hits Ice in the side. He jumps in the air, and darts off screen.
The Police Report
What the video does not show, according to Animal Control Officer Jean Roslonowski, is the crowd of neighbors, children, and other pets that were gathered around to watch the scene.
The video also does not show the area behind the house, where Ice was running around scaring other residents and dogs, Roslonowski said.
“They (officers) felt they could not get near the dog to snare him because of the way the dog was running around,” Roslonowski said. “Knowing one person was in the hospital, they could not take a chance.”
Roslonowski said that tail wagging can mean a dog is happy, but it can also mean it is “aggressively waiting.”
“Just because the dog is wagging its tail does not mean it’s a friendly dog,” Roslonowski said.
Police on Thursday provided the Valley Independent Sentinel with a copy of the police report from the incident.
Article continues after document.
The report, written by Officer Jonathan Troesser, says the officers on scene determined they should shoot the dog based on their failed attempts to corral the dog.
“The white pit bull came charging towards me and was barking aggressively,” the report states. “I backed off of the yard and stepped back into the street. The dog stopped on the grass as I pulled out my department issued HK USP 45 pistol.”
“The dog continued to act in an aggressive manner towards myself and the other officers on scene,” Troesser wrote. “He would continue to run back and forth to both sides of the residence and behind the neighboring houses as well. Each time we attempted to approach the dog, it would charge at us barking and growling.”
Troesser said the dog showed “extremely aggressive behavior” and that it appeared there was no way for police to apprehend the dog.
“Based upon the actions of the dog, I knew that myself and my fellow officers were at risk of being attacked by the dog,” Troesser wrote. “Other area residents that were outside of the yards were also at risk and I deemed it necessary to dispatch the dog.”
Troesser said he waited for the dog to stop in the front yard, “where there was a safe backstop to discharge my pistol.”
Reaction
Trapp said she is devastated by the shooting.
“They shot my little 40-pound Ice,” Trapp said. “This dog has never growled in his life.”
Ice was a rescue dog, and was deaf, according to Trapp. She said he was training to become a therapy dog that would volunteer at local hospitals.
Trapp described Ice as a calm dog, who would allow her to dress him up in costumes and paint his nails. She said he got along with children and other dogs.
While Trapp initially planned to help find Ice a home, she decided to keep him once she realized how lovable he was, she said.
The animal community was outraged by the shooting — saying it was prompted by misconceptions about pit bulls.
A march is planned for May 20 in Ansonia, where people angered by the incident plan to march past the Ansonia Police Department in protest of the shooting.
Trapp and her husband said they do not plan to file a complaint or sue the department.
While they feel the shooting was wrong, the family said they want Ansonia police officers to get more training in handling dogs.
‘The Canine Language’
Trapp hopes Jeff Coltenback, a dog trainer and “behaviorist” in New Jersey, will teach the training course — assuming Ansonia police agree to it.
Coltenback said he developed a program in response to a pit bull that was shot in New Jersey last year, and the shooting in Ansonia this month.
“When this happened to Ice, that whole night and whole day, I started sitting around thinking of how I can help,” Coltenback said.
The training program would help inform police departments about different dog behaviors, how to read canine body language, how to read dogs that are missing their ears or tails, and their vocal communication.
Coltenback has already talked with departments in New Jersey about the program, and said he would be willing to bring the training to Ansonia for free.
Roslonowski said he might do better to train animal owners.
“Really, if people want to become rescue people they need to have training so they don’t bring these potentially dangerous dogs into their homes,” Roslonowski said.
The Other Dog
Trapp’s brother, Steed Kaliszewski, was the man who was bit by the mastiff.
Kaliszewski said the dog attacked him while he was dog-sitting for Trapp. Trapp and her husband were in New Jersey checking on another pit bull rescue.
Kaliszewski was able to get out of the house and ask a neighbor for help. He went to Griffin Hospital, and while he was gone, Ice was able to get out of the house.
Because the biting happened to a family member in a private home, police did not issue a ticket to the Trapps.
Zeus was placed in quarantine for a week, and is still living at the Trapp residence on Judson Place.
