Washington: A 17-year-old teenager in the US has been shot dead after several bullets fired by sheriff's officials at an aggressive dog bounced off the ground and hit him in the chest.
Armando Garcia, who was about to enter his senior year, was struck in the chest on Friday by at least one "skip" round several yards from the Los Angeles County Sheriffs deputies who fired several shots at a charging pit bull.
Investigators believe the deputies did not notice the teenager in the darkness.
Earlier, the dog had bitten one of the deputies and the teenager had restrained the animal so that it would not attack again.
The bitten deputy did not fire but was struck in his right leg by a fragment of a bullet fired by a fellow deputy that bounced off the ground in the shooting.
"He would give his life for anybody. He was a very loving person," said Garcia mother Roberta Alcantar.
"He may have been struck by one of the skip rounds in what we're calling an extremely, extremely unfortunate incident," Capt. Christopher Bergner of the Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau said.
"Our initial impression was [the deputies] didn't even see the individual coming around from the side of the building," Bergner was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times.
Five deputies were present at the time of the shooting but only two fired, discharging six to eight rounds, Bergner said.
Authorities said deputies had gone to an apartment complex in response to a call about a loud party. As they arrived, a pit bull charged at them and bit one of the deputies in the left knee.
The teenager restrained the animal and brought it to the rear of the complex, which was around a corner, Bergner said.
Garcia's aunt Amber Alcantar said deputies told her the teen was shot while trying to stop the dog from attacking deputies a second time.
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