NY trooper mistakenly kills police dog during attack

GREIG, N.Y. (AP) -- A state police trooper accidentally killed his K-9 partner when trying to protect it from a pit bull attack during a search of a New York residence.

Police say troopers were helping the Lewis County sheriff's office search a residence in the eastern Adirondacks late Monday when the pit bull ran out of the house and began attacking Trooper Shaun Smith's K-9 partner, a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois named Will.

Officials say Smith shot the pit bull in the leg. Troopers say it appears the bullet ricocheted off the ground and hit Will in the stomach. The K-9 died at a veterinary clinic.

Will graduated from K-9 school in April. He was named after Trooper William Doyle, who was fatally shot by escapees from a psychiatric institution in 1967.