Articles Posted in Dog Bites

A 20-month-old San Jose girl and her grandmother were reportedly attacked and badly bitten by their pet dogs believed to be pitbull-boxer mixes, according to an Associated Press news report posted on KESQ TV’s Web site. The toddler’s grandmother, 48-year-old Elizabeth Cinco, was reportedly bitten on the neck, ear and right leg when she tried to fight off the dogs and protect her granddaughter, Anna Leigh Cinco.

The child had to have part of her lip and chin reattached at a clinic in San Francisco, the article said. A news report posted in the San Diego News Tribune, initially said only one of the dogs bit the pair. But an article in the San Jose Mercury News clarified the chaotic incident, which ended up traumatizing the entire family.

One of the dogs first attacked the grandmother, who threw Anna into a couch to protect her. But the dog pounced on the little girl ripping her lip down to her jaw line, the newspaper reported. Another dog also tried to attack Anna’s 9-month-old brother, but the parents were able to fend off the dogs and get the situation under control.
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Kelly Caldwell was bitten and mauled to death by four dogs on Christmas night – all said to be pit-bulls. Now, even as people are placing flowers and stuffed animals on the street in Yermo where the ground is still stained with Caldwell’s blood, her family members are trying to make sense of this brutal mauling and investigators are trying to determine if criminal charges must be filed against the dog and its owners, according to an article in the Desert Dispatch.

Officers had to shoot two of the dogs, which they say were acting aggressively and quarantined two others. They learned later that all four dogs were owned by two men who lived in the same house on that street. What do the men have to say? That their dogs have nipped trespassers before, but that they would never jump over the fence and attack someone who was just passing by, according to another news report in the Desert Dispatch.

Investigators say they have no evidence yet to file criminal charges. But family members who saw Caldwell lying on the street said her legs looked like they were run over by a car and pieces of her body were scattered around the scene. Several neighbors told police that the dogs were aggressive and terrorized the neighborhood, a report in the Riverside Press Enterprise states. There are no documented complaints against the dogs.
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A 45-year-old Barstow woman is dead after being attacked by a pack of pit-bulls on the street on Christmas evening. According to a news article in the Desert Dispatch, the dogs (officials are still trying to determine how many) surrounded Caldwell and attacked her.

Police found Caldwell lying on the street around 9:30 p.m. Two of the pit-bulls that reportedly returned to the scene tried to attack officers who were trying to help Caldwell and determine what happened. Police shot both pit-bulls. Animal control officials took two other dogs, while another one is said to be at large.

Officials are still trying to determine who the dogs belonged to although they know at least two of the animals belonged to neighbors. They have also taken DNA samples from the two dead dogs, which confirm that they attacked the woman, an article posted on the local ABC station’s Web site reports. The two live dogs are being held as evidence, but will be released to their owners if it is determined that they did not attack Caldwell.

Police detectives are looking into whether the dogs’ owners knew whether the animals had any history of violence. If the dogs were dangerous and the owners knew about it, they could face criminal charges, officials told ABC. No arrests were made immediately, FOX News reports.
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This is one of those stories that you cannot even imagine happening to you or someone you know. Two LAPD officers are being honored for saving the life of a man who was being mauled by a pit-bull, according to a news article in the Los Angeles Daily News.

The horrific details of this attack are described in the Daily News article. Detective Mark Hahn and Andy Moody heard the 53-year-old man’s cries for help when they were driving near 97th and Hoover streets. The man was reportedly hiding under a parked car to escape the wrath of a pit-bull.

As the detectives ran to help him, the dog got under the car and bit the man’s leg, then actually dragged him from under the car and mauled him. By this time, people were gathering around to help the poor guy and stop the dog from killing him. Someone threw water on the dog. One of the detectives grabbed a shovel and hit the pit-bull on its head but even that didn’t stop the dog. It continued to maul the man, tearing down the flesh on his face and head!
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Sometimes, especially in dog bite cases involving young children, it’s hard to tell what’s scarier – the thought of a large dog viciously attacking the child or the denial of the dog owner who vehemently refuses to believe that his or her “pet” could do something like that. Take the example of this dog owner in Honolulu who denies that her dogs are vicious in spite of the fact that the animals repeatedly attacked children on the beach and she was even sentenced to jail time and ordered to pay thousands of dollars in fines in connection with those incidents!

According to an article in The Boston Globe, a jury in Hawaii made a decision against this particular dog owner, Mariko Bereday, and in favor of Keeton Manguso, a 2-year-old boy, giving the boy $856,000 in damages for injuries he suffered when Bereday’s unrestrained Rottweiler attacked the toddler on the beach.

Keeton’s mother, Veronica Tomooka, told the newspaper that she sued not for money, but to have a jury judge this particular dog owner and tell her that she is in fact negligent and liable for injuries her dog caused. And here’s the not-so-surprising part of this story – the dog owner is appealing the jury verdict saying that her dog did not bite the boy and that the photo of the injuries was phony.
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By: Staff Writer
About 5 million people in the United States are injured each year as a result of dog bites. It is way too common and you don’t have to try too hard to find at least a dozen incidents that are serious enough to make their way to the day’s news. Just over the last few days we were able to find numerous dog bite news articles on the Web.

What is shocking is that fatalities are starting to become more and more common in these attacks. And it’s not just babies or toddlers who are the victims. We have grown men and women – who did nothing but pass by a dog; mail carriers are common victims. In fact, Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys is representing David Carroll, a veteran mailman, who was mauled by a loose pit-bull in Westminster.

These incidents only reiterate the idea that we must hold dog owners responsible for their pets. If a dog runs loose and attacks or kills an innocent victim, guess who’s liable? The dog owner.
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Dog owners must be held responsible for the full extent of the damages their dogs cause. This is especially so if they know their animals can be dangerous and can seriously injure or even kill someone. Take the recent case of a Westminster woman whose pit-bull, Maggie, attacked a veteran mail carrier causing severe injuries to his face and emotional well being.

David Carroll, who has been a mail carrier for the last 16 years, was the latest unsuspecting victim of one of Sherri Moody’s dogs. Carroll reported that he was delivering mail on his regular route in Westminster when, without warning or a sound, he was attacked from behind and knocked to the ground. Before he knew what was happening he was fighting for his life with a pit-bull on top of him biting and tearing at his face and head. Carroll says that if not for a passerby that jumped in to help, he may not have survived the attack. He said he felt the pit-bull was trying to tear him apart and kill him.

Carroll has a nasty wound from his left eyelid to the side of his nose, up across his eye brow to his forehead and across the middle of his forehead to above his right eye. A triple peanut shell shaped chunk of skin is missing from his forehead. Bite marks are clearly visible just above his nose. The stitches are so obvious and grotesque that he looks like he is auditioning for the part of Lurch in the Munsters.

Mrs. Shirley Carroll, David’s wife, reports that he isn’t sleeping since the attack. She said that in the moments of sleep he does get he constantly has nightmares. He is continually agitated and on edge since coming home from the hospital she said. She is most concerned for his emotional well being.

David Carroll says any time he lays down he sees the dog on top of him, feels the panic he felt and relives the pit-bull attacking him. Based upon the look of the injuries it will take substantial plastic surgery to clean up the physical scars. Based upon his emotional state, he is going need therapy as well.

Carroll said this attack was not totally unforeseen. He has been fearful of the dog for some time. He leaves notes for other mail carriers that deliver to Carroll’s Westminster route when he is off, warning them of this pit-bull.
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Man victimized by dog and then the by his own attorney.

Ernest Sevilla was severely injured in a dog attack by a Japanese fighting dog. The dog took chunks of flesh from his left hand. It took over a hundred stitches to repair the hand and days of hospitalization to overcome the infection. Being a self employed contractor he lost months of work and was nearly bankrupted.

Sevilla hired a personal injury attorney to handle his case against the dog’s owner. The attorney told him he had a winning case. Three years later Sevilla’s doctors told him he must pay his medical bills himself because his personal injury case was thrown out of court. He contacted his attorney to find out what happened and was told his case had been dismissed because he was a fault and suggested that he file bankruptcy.

If dog owners won’t take responsibility for their animals, they should face criminal charges and pay for the suffering they’ve caused innocent victims who get bitten and suffer serious physical and emotional trauma. It is comforting to know that more and more district attorneys are filing criminal charges against negligent dog owners.

Take this case in Petaluma where a man was arrested and charged with four felony counts of allowing mischievous animals to be at large causing bodily injury. According to an article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, 50-year-old Kieran Burns’ two off-leash, 90-pound Rottweilers attacked a father and his son severely injuring both.

The father Roberto Kampfner Sr. told the newspaper that the dogs attacked him and his son, Roberto, as they were walking home from the local high school track on April 29. Kampfner Sr. tried to hold his son aloft to protect him from the vicious dogs, but the animals tried to snatch the boy from his arms, the distraught father said. The boy was bitten at least 20 times and some of his wounds penetrated all the way to his bone, the newspaper reported. This week Burns took a plea bargain, pleading guilty to two felony counts. The two other charges will be dismissed and officials say there’s a good chance he will avoid serious prison time and simply get probation.

That’s too bad as far as I am concerned. I would like to see Burns sentenced to a year. Then I’d hope that there would be a huge media buss about it so people would see someone going to jail for acting irresponsibly with their dogs.

This dog attack story is an example of why irresponsible dog owners deserves to be criminally charged and yes, do jail time. Burns’ dogs have a track record of violent behavior. Burns was under orders to keep his Rottweilers confined after an attack in February 2005. Then in August that same year, Burns was fined after the dogs bit a neighbor’s child, the newspaper reports.
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A Petaluma woman was brutally attacked by a Great Dane as she stopped to pet a leashed dog when she was on a walk, according to an article in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. According to the news report, the woman, Lisa Sheean, her husband, Mike Sheean and their 9-year-old son were walking along a coastal bluff last Saturday night when a man walking a Great Dane crossed their path.

Sheean told the newspaper his wife actually asked the dog owner if the animal was friendly and that the owner replied that it was. When the woman bent over to pet the Great Dane, the dog, without warning, grabbed her by the head, Sheean said. The dog didn’t even growl before it pounced on her, he said. Lisa Sheean had stitches over one eye and her head and also had puncture wounds in her head, the article stated.

An investigation is ongoing and the dog has been quarantined for 10 days. Investigators are also trying to determine what caused the dog to bite, how severe the injuries are and the history of the dog. The dog could face restrictions even if the wounds are not severe, officials said. According to the article, the Sheeans themselves own two Rottweilers and so considered themselves to be very comfortable with dogs.

Now, it’s very easy to say in hindsight that Lisa Sheean should not have pet that dog, even with the consent of its owner. Of course, we don’t know if the dog had a prior history of attacking people or small dogs or children. Officials are saying never pet a strange dog. You never know what dogs are going to do. Sometimes, owners are in denial but other times, they really don’t know what their dogs are going to do either.
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