Dogs belonging to man jailed in standoff may be euthanized

Jen Lawson

Thursday, April 8, 2004 | 10:53 a.m.

Some of the pit bull terriers that were removed from a Henderson home after their owner's arrest in connection with a 24-hour police standoff may be euthanized, Henderson Police said.

Henderson Animal Care and Control, where the 13 dogs are being held, has a policy of not making adult pit bulls available for adoption, Officer Shane Lewis, police spokesman, said.

"Sometimes they can be a bit unpredictable and (animal control officials) don't want the liability," he said.

The dogs were taken from the home Tuesday afternoon after police arrested 38-year-old Jeffery M. Donnelly on charges of attempted murder of a police officer and other offenses.

Police also allege Donnelly held his girlfriend, Jill Powers, against her will for a short time, then fired 17 shots at officers who tried to storm the house.

The standoff began Monday afternoon when the owner of the house Donnelly was renting in the 800 block of Viento del Montagna Avenue told him he had to move out because of the dogs, police said

Under a Henderson ordinance, residents are limited to three adult dogs in their homes.

A couple of the dogs belong to Powers, Lewis said, so officials expect her to claim them. As for the other dogs, Donnelly can make arrangements with friends or family to take them in.

The dogs will be held indefinitely and will be euthanized only as a last resort, Lewis said.

Some of the dogs have cuts and bite marks, but it doesn't appear they were being trained to attack each other, as some pit bulls are.

"The girlfriend said apparently a few of them don't get along well so they got into fights and bit each other," he said. "There are a few who are nice and sweet and a few who are aggressive."

The dogs' presence in the house -- and Donnelly's shooting at police -- complicated the officers' efforts to remove Donnelly from the house, Lewis said. Officers weren't sure what type of threat the dogs would pose. The dogs wound up not being much of problem at all.

Donnelly, who was convicted of felonies in Florida and New York for robbery and firearms violations, allegedly rigged the garage doors to keep them from opening and had changed the lock on the front door so a key was needed to open it from the inside.

Based on the information Powers gave police, officers obtained a search warrant. According to Henderson Police policy, the special response team serves search warrants when there are known to be weapons in the home.

Donnelly refused to let police inside and barricaded himself in the house. Negotiators reached him by telephone and tried to talk him into surrendering but he refused.

After police tossed canisters of tear gas through the windows, Donnelly appeared at a second floor window and, police allege, began to shoot at officers.

Bullets flew within feet of the officers, the police report says. One officer suffered a minor hand injury when a bullet hit a block wall and fragments hit him.

At one point, police allege, Donnelly threw a smoke canister device at the officers. After the standoff ended, officers found a small explosive device, similar to fireworks, in the house and had the Las Vegas Fire and Rescue bomb squad detonate it, fire officials said.

When police forced their way into the house about 24 hours after the standoff began, they found him holed up in an attic "where he had set up a small area to resist officers," the report says. He was allegedly armed with a rifle.

Police took Donnelly to St. Rose Dominican Hospital, where he was treated for inhalation of the chemical agents police had tossed into the home and for a cut on his foot. He was taken to the Henderson jail after that, where he remains.

Donnelly told police he felt he was "being set up by the police and that they wanted to hurt him and take his dogs," the report says.

He said he fired a .223-caliber rifle at officers because he thought they were firing at him, according to the police report.

The owner of the home said she called police last week and reported that Donnelly threatened a police standoff if she tried to evict him.