New Jersey

Dog Attacks Man at NJ Grocery Store, 4 Kids Outside Nearby School

Surveillance video obtained by News 4 shows people scrambling, with some running through the aisles of the grocery store

What to Know

  • A dog bit three kids and a man after it got loose in Newark Thursday morning, officials said; all were expected to be OK
  • Officers got a call reporting a dog running loose near Elwood Avenue and Broadway around 8 a.m., Newark police said
  • The dog apparently attacked the man in a grocery store first; store surveillance video showed it running through the aisles

A dog somehow got loose and attacked a man outside a New Jersey grocery store Thursday morning, then ran down the block and bit four kids, authorities say. 

Officers got a call reporting a dog running loose near Elwood Avenue and Broadway around 8 a.m., near Luis Munoz Marin Middle School, Newark police said. At some point, the canine, which appeared to be a German Shepherd, got into a grocery store.

Surveillance video obtained by News 4 shows people scrambling, with some running through the aisles, at a Twin City Supermarket. A child is seen running past some fruit. Seconds later, a dog is seen chasing after him. The Belgian Malinois disappears from the frame, but trots back in the opposite direction moments later.

Then it starts running the other way down the aisle again before apparently running out of the store and running into the four children. Witnesses reported the dog appeared to be playing with the kids before biting them. It's not clear where or when, amid the fray, the man was bitten outside the store. It's also not clear if the children who were bit had been inside the store first, then left.

The victims were taken to the hospital, police said. All of them were left with non-life threatening wounds.

The dog was caught and was initially with its owner at the scene before being taken into Animal Control's custody, police said. 

Authorities say the dog's owner runs a car dealership nearby; a witness described seeing the dog running out of a gate by the dealership shortly before the attack. Chopper 4 showed a number of emergency vehicles in the area. 

The witness told News 4 he started throwing bottles at the dog to try to get it to let go. 

"As [the dog] ran away from the little girl, he went back to the old man," the witness, Al Miller, said, adding that the dog didn't have a leash on. 

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