Marco the police dog takes a bite out of crime after holdup at Sullivan Square T stop

MBTA Transit Police report arresting one of three men who allegedly held a woman up at knifepoint just past midnight Sunday at the Sullivan Square T stop - after a police dog bit him in the ass.

According to a police report, a woman was standing by the upper busway when three Hispanic men approached her, pulled out knives and demanded her money. For good measure, they called her a "nigger." She told them, in Spanish, that she was Hispanic herself, but that didn't work. After they fled, and police arrived, she got in an cruiser with an officer - and Marco, the police dog.

When the officer and victim spotted two of three on Perkins Street in Somerville, he got out of his cruiser with Marco and ordered them to stop or he'd sic Marco on them, according to a police report. One main threw his hands up and surrendered, but the other, Patrick Janeiro, kept running, despite several more demands to stop, the report says.

I deployed March to apprehend Janeiro. Janeiro turned right onto Mt. Vernon St. and into the driveway at 35 Mt. Vernon St. Marco bit Janeiro in the driveway approximately 30 yards ahead of me. I ran into the driveway and observed Marco had Janeiro by the buttocks and Janeiro was punching Marco in the side of the face with a hammer fist motion. Marco released Janeiro and snapped at the hand that was striking him. I grabbed Janeiro, who was still fighting as Marco bit him again on the right shoulder. When Janeiro was on the ground face down and complying to my commands, I ordered Marco to release Janeiro.

The first suspect, in the meantime, took off and is still at large.

Janeiro was taken to Mass. General for bite wounds to the buttocks, shoulder and thumb, police say. He was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest and mistreating a police K-9. The Sullivan victim told police she recognized the three as members of the local MS-13 gang.

Janeiro is no stranger to police. Last September, he was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon in Somerville, after an officer saw him seemingly about to strike a man with a metal table leg. The man he was allegedly going to whack was himself armed with a belt wrapped around his hand.

Innocent, etc.