JEROME — Imagine if protecting the community meant euthanizing two family members. Last week, Chris Barber told the parents of a 6-year-old boy who was bitten by one of his two Rottweilers that he would put the dogs to sleep.

Barber had said that killing 2-year-old Stanley and 5-year-old Cori felt like killing two family members. Monday, he said he might not kill them because the dogs may have been provoked.

Barber, a Jerome City Council member, was cited Nov. 28 for harboring a vicious dog.

The dogs escaped from Barber’s yard two blocks south of Horizon Elementary school and attacked first-graders Wyatt DeWitt and Andres Jaimes in the playground, according to a Jerome police report. Three eyewitness accounts make no mention of the dogs being provoked. Barber was allowed to take his dogs home.

Cori, the larger of the two dogs, held Wyatt on the ground with its jaws clamped around his leg, according to witness statements.

“I went to the dog and hit him about the head approximately three times to get him to release Wyatt,” wrote Shelley Sturgeon, who said she responded after she heard screaming.

Andres, who stayed home the next day, suffered less harm when Stanley attacked him, according to his mother, Georgina Cruz.

“He’s OK,” Cruz said. “He didn’t cry or anything. It’s lucky nothing worse happened.”

Both the DeWitts and Cruz reported that Barber was apologetic at St. Benedicts Family Medical Center in Jerome. He also offered to cover all medical costs.

To the DeWitts, he said he had “come to terms with it and that he had made the decision to put the dogs down,” according to Mark DeWitt.

Since then, a teacher told Barber other students may have provoked the dog, according to Kristi DeWitt.

On Monday, Barber said, “I will do whatever the right thing is to do for the general safety of the public.” Killing his dogs, a thought that devastates Barber, is still a possibility, but no longer the only one.

Barber said his Rottweilers have never acted violently before.

Until last week, neither dog had been reported as violent, according to Jerome animal control officer Gordon Leininger. Six weeks ago, however, Barber was cited when they escaped his yard.

Barber said both times a horse he keeps in his yard opened the gate.

A Jerome city ordinance defines a vicious dog as any dog that bites, claws or otherwise harms another animal or person without provocation.

On Friday, a new Jerome city ordinance will allow Leininger to take a dog he finds vicious directly to a shelter. Now, he cannot remove a dog unless there is probable cause that it has bitten a person or another animal.

“It got passed because people are tired of the aggressive-type dogs,” he said.

Barber’s arraignment on the vicious dog citation is tentatively scheduled to take place in two weeks.

Times-News reporter Cassidy Friedman can be reached at (208)735-3241 or by e-mail at cfriedman@magicvalley.com.