Officers shoot dogs — killing 1 — as they maul man in West Philly, police say

A man is in critical condition after being attacked by five dogs in a West Philadelphia neighborhood on Wednesday afternoon.

In an effort to free the man, police shot at the dogs, killing one of them, officials said.

Police and neighbors say the incident started in a person's backyard on the 1500 block of North Robinson Street just before 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

A neighbor told NBC10 that the 60-year-old victim was likely disoriented when he walked by the "beware of dogs" signs and into a narrow alleyway before he opened the gate to a yard where the dogs were located.

“He didn’t know where he was at. So, when the lady came out that lived there she just told him to get off the property. So, when he was getting off the property instead of him coming back to the street, he went through her walkway to the alley," neighbor Kenny McGraw said.

The dogs attacked him on sight, she said.

"He seen the dogs was in there and he just literally opened up the gate, why? We don’t know," McGraw told NBC10.

When officers arrived on the scene they had to pull the dogs off of the man who fell unconscious before shooting two of the five, according to police.

One of those dogs died, and officials said, the man was taken to a nearby hospital where he is listed in critical condition.

Police described the dogs involved as Staffordshire Bull Terriers. Three of them were still in the yard as officers worked to clean up the scene.

Officials are working to identify the victim, who neighbors say, suffered from strokes in the past and had often seemed disoriented in the past.