IRVING, Texas — Panic and anger are evident in one caller’s voice.
“These two pit bull dogs standing outside of my house just attacked a man!” the woman screamed to the 911 operator. The operator repeatedly told her to calm down so she could understand her cries.
“Is he injured?” the operator asked.
“Of course!” the caller screamed back. “I don’t know. I’m not going outside to check!”
At least four people called 911 on the evening of March 15 near Compton Avenue and Grimes Road in west Irving to report two loose pit bulls running around their neighborhood, which is south of Highway 183 and east of Highway 161.
“Were they aggressive toward you?” asked an operator. “Yes,” a caller responded. “They were trying to run toward us and toward my door and I had to run because they were barking and trying to get us.”
The calls came in between approximately 9:15 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. The area is about a block from Windmill Lane, where 33-year old Johana Villafane lived with the dogs and her family.
In response to a public information request from WFAA, the city of Irving released the 911 calls and animal control reports from that March 15 incident. The report contained grainy photos of bite marks on a man’s leg and back. Police say the man was a neighbor of Villafane’s and was bitten by the dogs that were running loose in the neighborhood. He did not go to the hospital.
After the dogs, named Oliver and Delfina, bit the neighbor, the city ordered Villafane to quarantine them. She did so at O’Connor Animal Hospital.
Villafane went to visit her dogs at the hospital on March 23. While she was in a backyard enclosure with them, police say they attacked her.
“We need an ambulance over here. A dog attacked her owner,” the clinic employee who called 911 told the operator.
“Oh my God,” she said, as the operator was transferring her to an ambulance dispatcher.
The clinic employee explained that Villafane was bloody and not moving on the ground, but that they could not reach her because the dogs were still standing over her.
Irving police officers who responded to that employee’s 911 call shot and killed the dogs in order to get to Villafane.