Cops say it may be a tall tail.
The alleged “stabbing” of a pooch in Central Park this week may have actually been an accident that occured after the pooch’s leash got tangled with another dog and one owner tried to cut them loose, police officials said Thursday.
“There’s a lot more to that story,” Chief James Essig told reporters when asked about the Saturday night encounter between two dog walkers that forced one to put down his 14-year-old dog after getting cut by a knife.
According to the chief, the alleged slasher had two of his dogs on leashes when his third dog snapped at an elderly pit bull-German shepherd mix, named Eli, at the park’s 106th Street and East Drive entrance around 8:30 p.m.
The dogs then appear to have begun fighting after the owners exchanged words, according to cops.
At one point, the dogs’ leashes became tangled and one of the owners pulled a switchblade to try to cut the restraints and break up the fight, according to Essig.
Eli’s owner, who asked only to be identified as Brian Robert, then pulled pepper spray and unloaded it on the pooches.
The elderly dog Eli was injured at some point by the knife, but the cutting may have happened as the other owner was trying to slice through the leashes to free the dogs, cops said, citing their interview with Eli’s owner.
After the incident other owner walked off, and has not been located.
Essig said the stabbing wasn’t fatal, but Robert eventually decided to euthanize his dog after the vet found a tumor that would have killed the elderly pooch in just a few months.
Robert, though, had a much more dramatic recounting of the event, telling reporters on multiple occasions that the other unknown dog owner sicced his three unleashed dogs on him and his pooches — while wildly swinging a knife.
Essig said that account had varied when interviewed by cops.
“The victim gave conflicting statements in this,” Essig said, adding, Robert “doesn’t know when was the dog stabbed during the cutting of the leash or was he stabbed afterward.”
When told of the chief’s comments, Robert told The Post it was “bullcrap” and accused the cops of not doing their jobs.
“I never changed the story,” Robert said. “The story is the NYPD is not doing anything.”
“He already had the knife,” the 52-year-old said, denying it was pulled during the dog fight. “The guy tried to stab me. I was bobbing and weaving. I was fighting him and his three dogs.”
“I’m a fighter, but I can’t take this guy and three dogs.”
Robert, who said he is disabled and Eli was his emotional support animal, later admitted to having poor eyesight and wasn’t sure if the other man had swung the knife at him.
The NYPD’s Animal Cruelty Investigation Squad is still investigating the incident.
The dog owner did have hope that the Animinal Cruety detective was “trying to help.”