Updated at 12:35 p.m. Aug. 12: Revised to include additional information about the dogs from police.
A 16-year-old boy has died after three dogs attacked him in an Irving back yard Saturday morning, police say.
Officers responded about 4:45 a.m. in the 800 block of East Third Street, near Irving Boulevard, and stopped the attack by jumping a fence to get between the boy and the dogs. Police said they also fired on the dogs when they charged.
The boy, who did not live at the home where the attack occurred, was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital with critical injuries. He died Saturday night, police said Sunday.
"We don't want to speculate on what he might have been doing, but we definitely don't know why he was in that back yard," Irving police spokesman Robert Reeves said, according to KXAS-TV (NBC5).
Police declined to release the boy's name because he was a juvenile suspected of trespassing, but the Dallas County medical examiner identified him as Nelson Cabrera, NBC5 said.
The owner of the home said the teenager was trespassing on his property.
"He has no right to be in that yard. Nobody has a right to be in that yard. This is private property," Guillermo Lorenzo told NBC5. "That's why the fence is tall."
One officer was bitten and treated for minor injuries. All three dogs, which police said were pit bulls, were seized and taken to the Irving Animal Care Campus, including one dog that had been shot.
The dog that was shot was later euthanized because of "the severity of its injuries," police said.
Police don't anticipate Lorenzo will face charges.
Elizabeth Cantu, Lorenzo's next-door neighbor, said she was awakened by the noise of the attack about 4:30 a.m.
"I heard yelling, I heard dogs," Cantu said. "I jumped out of bed and ran outside ... and I could immediately tell those dogs were attacking someone."
Cantu, 32, ran outside and tried to wake Lorenzo by honking her truck's horn while her family called 911. She said she heard the teenager escape from the dogs and bang on the back door of Lorenzo's house before the attack resumed.
Cantu said Lorenzo had previously told her all three dogs could be aggressive, and she described them as "not nice."
She said her family previously had problems with the dogs, which she said looked like pit bulls. One of the dogs acted aggressively toward her when she tried to cover a hole that it had dug into her back yard while she was outside with her daughter, Cantu said.
"I'm scared of those dogs, I am," she said.
Anyone with information about the case may contact Irving police at 972-273-1010 and refer to Case No. 19-17970. Tips also can be submitted to ipdcrimetips@cityofirving.org.
Staff writer Dana Branham contributed to this report.
