Pit bulls shot after police raids

Two separate police raids ended with pit bull dogs shot in their respective homes. Pit bull dogs were shot after police raided houses in the past week.

On the morning of Friday, July 29th, Michael Urban's house was raided by the Buffalo Police Department, as their Narcotics Department executed 15 search warrants in the Lovejoy-Kaisertown area. Although BPD tells us a search warrant was executed for Urban's home on Weaver Street, Urban says officers raided the wrong home, and that the description didn't match him.

"5'11 210 white male and this is a 5'11 170 black male... I don't look like either of those," said Urban.

According to Urban, officers came into his home and shot his 18-month-old pit bull, Gotham, twice. A bullet hole on his kitchen floor serves as memory of that morning. The bullet made it through the floor to the home of the downstairs residents.

"What just happened?" Urban recalls what was going through his mind that morning. "As the bullet hole went through the floor through the ceiling, as the dogs blood is dripping through the downstairs apartment... who's accountable?"

The Internal Affairs Division of the Buffalo Police Department has opened an investigation into the matter.

A similar situation occurred on Esser Street. According to resident of the home on Esser Street, Cindy Meers, her seven-year-old pit bull dog was shot by the Erie County Sheriff's Office and Buffalo SWAT Thursday afternoon.

According to Meers, her dog, Damian, was shot after her 23-year-old son was handcuffed while laying face down on the floor. Her 2-year-old grandson was also in the home. Meers fears the bullets could've ricochet onto her family members. The bullet holes on her kitchen wall and a hole on the door on the entrance remind her of that afternoon.

"I'm hardly sleeping," said Meers. "I wake up to nightmares reliving it, replaying it in different ways that things could've been done."

We have reached out to the Erie County Sheriff's Department and are waiting for comment.