Two dogs were fatally shot by police after an Amazon driver was found dead near them on Monday night with what appeared to be wounds from an animal attack.
Police in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, said they found a man’s body on the front lawn of a home about 7pm after neighbors reported a van had been parked there for many hours. Investigators discovered that the dead man was an Amazon delivery driver.
Police also said an English mastiff and a German shepherd were on the scene behaving aggressively before retreating into the house at one point. The owners were not there, and the local sheriff, Scott Childers, said deputies shot and killed both dogs.
Authorities have so far stopped short of confirming that the slain dogs killed the Amazon delivery driver. But the sheriff said the man’s wounds were consistent with having been mauled by an animal.
Officials have not publicly released the man’s name. Amazon released a statement expressing sorrow over the driver’s death.
“We’re deeply saddened by tonight’s tragic incident involving a member of our Amazon family and will be providing support to the team and the driver’s loved ones,” the statement said, according to NBC News. “We are assisting law enforcement in their investigation.”
This is the second time a package carrier has been killed since August, when five dogs attacked and killed a postal worker in Florida after her vehicle broke down.
That postal worker, Pamela Jane Rock, was 61, NBC News reported.
Dog attacks against package carriers are common in the US. According to the US Postal Service, in 2021 alone, “more than 5,400 postal employees were attacked by dogs [across] the United States”.
Excelsior Springs is a community of about 10,000 people about 25 miles north-east of Kansas City.
