At 69, Roosevelt Tramill said, he doesn’t move as swiftly as he once did — unless he has to.

On Monday, he had to.

“I was at my daughter’s doing some yard work and emptying the trash,” he said. “I’m in the backyard, and all of a sudden I see these four pit bulls, and they’re coming at me hard and fast. They were serious, serious as could be.”

Tramill had parked his pickup truck in the backyard of the house in the 3900 block of North Kitley Avenue on the Northeastside and was about 6 feet away when he saw the dogs.

“I’m almost 70, so 6 feet can seem like a long way,” he said. “But I got moving pretty quick.”

He scrambled into the driver’s-side door when the dogs were about 5 feet away from him. They were barking and snarling and baring their teeth, he said. They jumped at the open driver’s-side window, which he hurriedly rolled shut.

“I was scared, man, those pit bulls, they don’t take no prisoners,” Tramill said. “If I had wasted a second, they would have got me.”

Tramill drove out of the yard and around the block. He rolled slowly into the yard to see whether the dogs were still there. “I pull in, and here they come again, just like before, except now they want to attack the truck,” he said.

Tramill pulled out his cell phone and called 911, then drove to the front driveway and waited for police.

Indianapolis metropolitan police officer Jonathan Lawlis showed up first and talked to Tramill. He grabbed a shotgun from his squad car’s trunk and approached the yard.

The dogs were in a neighbor’s backyard, “barking, snarling and acting very aggressively,” Lawlis said in a report.

Lawlis said the most aggressive dog, the pack leader, “charged at me with his teeth bared, and the rest of the dogs followed.”

Lawlis shot the dog in the chest with a 12-gauge Remington shotgun, killing it. The other dogs retreated.

“If he didn’t shoot that dog, he would have been dead,” Tramill said of Lawlis. “It’s a good thing he had that shotgun. That lead dog was in the air when he shot him. They were so close to him that the buckshot didn’t even have time to spread out.”

The dog’s owner, Rico Terry, 35, took possession of the dog’s body so he could dispose of it. Police did not arrest him and did not impound the dog.

Animal Care and Control Lt. Jerry Bippus said Tuesday the agency was never called to the scene but was investigating. He said some of the dogs might be impounded, depending on their histories.

Terry could not be reached for comment.

Tramill said he used to own a Rottweiler, but it was nothing like these dogs. “He never caused anybody any problems,” he said.

Tramill said his daughter’s yard abuts Terry’s backyard, and he thinks Terry’s fence has a breach.

Tramill, who owns the house, said he will continue to do yard work for his daughter on one condition: “If that fence isn’t fixed, I ain’t getting out of that truck.”