Keera, a Pit Bull Who Was ‘Everything,’ Shot to Death

After school was out, after wrestling practice was over, a weary Dana Kleven used to get on his bike and deliver newspapers. For half a year the Brea High School freshman worked hard, saving his paper route earnings to get a dog just like his cousin’s.

When he had accumulated $75, he bought the greatest dog in the world--Keera, a pit bullterrier. “She was everything,” Dana, now 18, recalled.

Wednesday morning, Keera lay dying in Dana’s arms, shot twice by a police officer who saw the animal rushing at her in the early morning darkness.

Moments before the incident, at about 4:30 a.m., Keera had been barking. Donald Kleven, Dana’s father, got out of bed and walked to the back patio of the comfortable Jasmine Drive home in Brea to see what was wrong with the dog.

Keera, who was a constant companion of Dana and a group of neighborhood children, stood at the end of her leash looking out at the street.

When Kleven opened the glass door, Keera bounded into the house, but suddenly turned when unleashed and ran back outside. “I thought she went after a cat,” Kleven said.

Following her into the front yard, Kleven saw someone standing by a truck with a flashlight. Next he heard three shots. Then Keera yelped once.

According to the police report, Officer Monica Bertram was on the early morning parking control shift, writing tickets in the 400 block of Jasmine Drive.

When she saw the dog running at her, she fired three rounds from 18 feet away, police said. Two .38-caliber slugs hit the dog, ripping through its chest and shattering its back leg.

The wounded animal struggled back to the house, where Dana, now awake, cradled her in his arms. Rushed to an emergency veterinary hospital in Fullerton, Keera died two hours later.

“Watching his dog bleeding to death on the carpet--that was hard,” Shirley Kleven said of her youngest son.

Police said no charges will be filed against the Klevens. The family said it plans no legal action against the police.

“We’re not blaming anybody,” Shirley Kleven said. “The press has everybody upset at these dogs, but I don’t think the officer ever even saw it was a pit bull.”

Gathered in the family room Wednesday, the Klevens showed a visitor pictures of Keera with the family, playing with neighborhood children and even a videotape of the frisky bullterrier frolicking in a local pond, leaping high off an embankment into the olive-green water to fetch boards and sticks.

Dana won’t be getting another dog anytime soon. He has graduated from high school and leaves in January on a Mormon missionary trip, just as his brothers did before him.

“It doesn’t seem like another one could replace her anyway,” the young man said, biting slowly on his lip. “She really likes people. I can’t believe she ran over there. I can’t believe it happened.”