GREIG, N.Y. – A state police trooper accidentally killed his K-9 partner when trying to protect it from a pit bull attack during a search of a New York residence.

Police say troopers were helping the Lewis County sheriff’s office search a residence in the eastern Adirondacks late Monday when the pit bull ran out of the house and began attacking Trooper Shaun Smith’s K-9 partner, a 3-year-old Belgian-Malinois named Will.

Officials say Smith shot the pit bull in the leg. Troopers say it appears the bullet ricocheted off the ground and hit Will in the stomach. The K-9 died at a veterinary clinic.

Will graduated from K-9 school in April. He was named after Trooper William Doyle, who was fatally shot by escapees from a psychiatric institution in 1967.