An Alameda police officer responding to a burglary ended up shooting and killing a member of the responding unit.
Officers initially deployed a police dog into the building when police first arrived. The dog somehow bit one of the officers who, in turn, shot and killed the dog.
Police said the canine did not release when commanded by his handler. Seconds later, the officer being bitten fired three shots at the dog, killing him. This all happened just after 6 a.m. after someone reported the Coast Guard Recruiting center was being robbed.
The police canine, a Belgian Malinois named Billy, had been with the department for three years and was assigned to a new officer in September.
The officer who was bitten, a two-year veteran of the department, was transported to Highland Hospital for treatment.
As for the robbery, the suspect was arrested after a short struggle. Police say Douglas Wayne Kirk, 56, was transported to Alameda Hospital where he was treated for minor lacerations that happened during the arrest.
Late Thursday, police said Kirk called in the robbery himself in an attempt to get them to kill him.
During the struggle, Kirk told police they had fired upon the wrong target, and that he was supposed to have been shot.
After learning Kirk was the original reporting party to the burglary and had called 911 from the facility, investigators determined he had intended to purposefully challenge them to use deadly force against him, police said.
