Coyote killed by police after biting 2 in Fremont

A sick coyote bit two people — one of them a young boy — and chased a frightened jogger before being killed by police in Fremont on Thursday evening, officials said.

Police received a call from a man who had been bitten and was already on his way to the hospital around 5:45 p.m. The victim, a man in his 40s, had been walking to his car on the 3100 block of Starr Street and didn’t see the animal prior to the attack.

The man, who was with his children when he was bitten, ran back to the house with the coyote in pursuit, but was able to shut the door before the animal got inside. When police arrived on the scene, the coyote was nowhere to be found.

Another call came in around 6:30 from a man who was jogging just a few blocks away. He told police that an animal he described as a wolf began to chase him and he was able to escape only after he kicked it off and ran to his house.

While officers were searching the area near the jogger’s home, they received a report from a nearby hospital of a second bite victim, this one a 5-year-old boy. The child had been walking with his father around 5:30 when the coyote appeared from nowhere and bit him on the leg. The boy’s father was able to scare the animal off shortly thereafter.

Both of the victims were treated at local hospitals and released, police said.

Just before 7 p.m., police located the coyote, which looked sick and possibly injured, on Nido Court, about a half mile away from the scene of the first attack. Fearing it could get away again and continue biting people, officers killed the coyote and turned its body over to animal services to have it tested for potential diseases, including rabies.