No Criminal Charges in Illinois Fatal Dog Attack
The NCRC is the first to recognize that some cases of fatal dog attacks are truly accidents that involved no negligence on the part of either owner or victim. However, most cases of fatal dog attacks involve some degree of negligence on the part of an owner. Whether that negligence can be constituted as criminal negligence is often dependant on whether any previous aggression by the dog can be proven, and more importantly, whether the area in which the attack occurred has statutes which can be applied to negligent dog owners.
Seemingly identical scenarios of a fatal dog attack may result in an owner being charged in one jurisdiction, while in another jurisdiction no charges are filed.
In Flora, IL, a woman died trying to save her small dog. Her small dog died despite her valiant attempts to save it. The attacking dog has been euthanized. Compared to the terrible price all these parties have paid, the owner of attacking dog seems to have escaped virtually unscathed.
The negligence of the owner that resulted in these tragic events has apparently not met the jurisdiction’s requirement for criminal charges.
December, 9, 2009: FLORA, Ill. — Criminal charges will not be filed against the owner of a dog that attacked and killed an elderly Flora woman, said Flora Police Chief John Nicholson.
He identified the dog’s owner as Brian Pennington, 31.
Rosie L. Humphreys, 85, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Humphreys was walking her two poodles when the 3-year-old, when a 60-pound dog ran out of a yard, knocked her to the ground and mauled her. One of Humphreys’ poodles also died in the attack. An autopsy revealed Humphreys bled to death.
Officials with the Flora Police Department said that a metal “D” ring that attached the dog’s leather collar to a log chain apparently failed, allowing the dog to escape a short time before the attack. The Penningtons live at 255 Austin Ave., a few doors from Humphreys’ home at 235 Austin Ave.
The dog was described by investigators as a “family pet” that had not been trained to fight or attack. (The NCRC does not agree with this statement, as chained dogs are not “family” pets, they are “resident” dogs: What is the difference between a “resident dog” and a “family dog?” )
The animal was euthanized a short time after the attack.
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Cook County Sheriff Tim Dart comforts one of the pit bull puppies rescued from a dog fighting raid at a Maywood Day Care Center.
Dog Fighting Arrests at Day Care Center
September 23, 2009: A Maywood house in which a child day-care facility was operating also was the base of a dogfighting ring, officials said. Cook County sheriff’s police arrested three people and recovered nine dogs from three homes as part of a raid, authorities said.
“All of the dogs that we got yesterday were in horrific condition,” Cook County Sheriff Dart said while cuddling a puppy taken during the raid.
Officers found one dog with its eye ripped out, another with a leg twisted backward and yet another with its lower extremities nearly ripped off its body, Sheriff Tom Dart said. Other dogs had various other injuries that required medical treatment.
Dart said a swing set on which the children played was 10 feet from a garage where “a vicious fighting dog” was kept. The garage had bloodstained floors, Dart said.
“The very equipment used to train these dogs to kill was being kept in the garage right behind the house,” Dart said.
The day-care operator insisted she was not involved in dogfighting and said children were never near the dogs or dogfighting equipment, the sheriff’s office said.
However, her husband, Charles Sutton, 42, was charged with felony dogfighting Wednesday, the sheriff’s office said.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, which has licensed the day-care facility since 2004, had twice received complaints about dogs at the home, said Kendall Marlowe, DCFS spokesman.
Marlowe said officials made four visits to the home in the 2100 block of Third Avenue since 2006 and found that there was no evidence of the dogs in the day-care area. However, after Tuesday’s raid, the operator complied with a request from DCFS to surrender her day-care license, Marlowe said.
Dart said 10 children were being watched at the house at the time of the raid. In a garage behind the house, police found blood on the floor and along the sides of a car and medication, bite sticks and harnesses used in dogfights.
Investigators learned that many fighting dogs were housed nearby in the garage of a home in the 2000 block of South Sixth Avenue. That house was home to an ex-con who charged $60 a month for dogs to be kept there, authorities said.
Martez Anderson, 38, was cited for being a felon in possession of an unneutered or unspayed dog, the sheriff’s office said.
In the garage at Anderson’s home, police found an 18-month-old pit bull and three 4-week-old puppies in a wire cage that was soaked in feces and urine, with no signs of food or water, Dart said. Police said they believe the puppies were already being used in fights, possibly as “bait dogs.”
Anderson’s cousin, Lance Webb, 27, of Maywood, was charged with felony dogfighting.
As investigators searched Anderson’s property, they noticed a dog with a shredded face through an opening in a next-door neighbor’s fence, Dart said, leading police to a third site not originally targeted in the raid. There police found two dogs — one with fresh fighting wounds and another puppy that was emaciated and had scarring.
The owner of that home consented to a search and, police said, they also found a treadmill in a dilapidated garage, which had been altered specifically to train dogs to fight.
All dogs rescued in the raid are being treated at the Animal Welfare League in Chicago Ridge and are expected to recover.
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Pit bulls seized in Missouri – Illinois raids are rescued, but not yet saved
July 8, 2009 – An estimated 15 to18 dogs were taken from 10 Lakewood Place in East St. Louis by the Humane Society Wednesday evening. According to Illinois State trooper Michael Swindle, the majority of the dogs were pit bulls.
Technically, the 378 pit bulls seized this week by authorities in Missouri and Illinois still belong to the same men accused of training them in the blood sport of dogfighting.
And while a federal judge eventually will decide whether to sever ownership of the dogs, the final fate of the animals remains uncertain.
They are rescued but not yet saved.
If the history of dealing with fighting animals holds true, some of these dogs — perhaps even more half of them — will be euthanized. Forget the relative success in NFL star Michael Vick’s 2007 dogfighting case, where 47 of 51 dogs were saved, experts say. That was an unusual outcome.
The reason that fighting dogs struggle outside the pit ring is they have been plucked from a world where they have been abused and unsocialized. Never seen a toy. Never tasted a treat. And suddenly they are being treated with kindness and attention.
No one knows whether the dogs taken this week are healthy enough or have the social skills to survive, officials say. Teams of veterinarians and animal behaviorists are assessing the dogs at an undisclosed emergency animal shelter set up by Humane Society of Missouri.
The dogs were seized in federal raids cracking down on a multistate dogfighting ring described as the largest in the nation. Ten men in Missouri and Illinois were arrested, plus others in Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Nebraska, Arkansas and Mississippi. The men are accused of a conspiracy to breed and train dogs for fights that they orchestrated at remote spots across the Midwest.
All of the dogs taken from kennels in Missouri and Illinois ended up in the care of the Humane Society of Missouri. About 70 more dogs were handled by other organizations.
“Systematic torture” is how Debbie Hill described the treatment of fighting dogs.
Hill, incident commander at the Humane Society of Missouri’s emergency shelter, declined to discuss specifics from the ongoing case. But she recalled a dogfighting operation broken up in Stoddard County in October 2007. It was, in many ways, easier to deal with because it paled by comparison: three men arrested and 26 dogs seized. One beagle was adopted out. But of the remaining 25 pit bulls, about 12 had to be euthanized, Hill said.
Hill said she could look in the eyes of the pit bulls and see they were once sweet animals.
“Unfortunately,” said Hill, “a lot of that is stolen away from them.”
Dr. Randall Lockwood, an animal behaviorist with the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was in St. Louis to help evaluate the pit bulls.
Fighting dogs typically are aggressive not toward people, but other dogs, Lockwood said. They can have a range of health issues. Some dogs are breeders — they do not fight but produce litters of fresh fighters. Others are bait dogs — they lack the bloodlust and so serve as punching bags in training fights.
“They often get the worst of it,” said Lockwood, who serves as ASPCA senior vice president for anti-cruelty field services. “Physically they are bad, but behaviorally OK.”
Lockwood cautioned against focusing on the differing opinions on how to handle fighting dogs. The source of the trouble can be found long before that.
“Even if many of these animals need to be euthanized, at least we’ve honored them by caring for them,” Lockwood said. “Blame needs to be cast on the dog fighters who have created the problem.”
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Dog finds abandoned baby
June 14, 2009: An abandoned baby was saved when Redbelly the dog alerted his master to the discarded newborn.
Redbelly, a mixed breed, drew his owner, Joe Logan, of Wheaton, Illinois, out to a yard where the shivering, naked baby boy lay, with umbilical cord still attached.
“He was very dirty, twigs and leaves around him, it was overwhelming,” Logan said.
The baby was rushed to Central DuPage Hospital, where he was in critical condition. Local police believe the baby spent the night in the cold and rain.
A search of the apartment complex near Logan’s home led to the discovery of a 24 year old Myanmar immigrant who had recently given birth without medical care. She was taken to the same hospital.
The mother faces felony charges from the abandonment. Under Illinois’ safe haven law, she could have left the newborn child at any police facility, firehouse, or hospital without any criminal prosecution.
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Vicious dog bill heads to governor’s desk
May 27, 2009: SPRINGFIELD – A bill to keep vicious dogs out of the hands of convicted felons passed out of the Illinois Senate and now awaits Gov. Pat Quinn’s approval.
The bill, authored by state Rep. Mike Boland, D-Moline, expands an existing law by prohibiting some felons from owning an unsterilized dog for 10 years after being released from prison.
It also prohibits these felons from ever owning a dog that has been legally declared vicious.
Felony violations that fall under this legislation include methamphetamine sale or production, marijuana sale or production, other drug sale or production, deadly weapons offenses and dogfighting offenses.
“My district has seen the tragic consequences of vicious dogs in our community through the death of a teenage girl a few years ago,” Boland said in a news release. “We need to make sure such an event never happens again.
The 14-year-old was walking alone in January 2005 when she was attacked by four dogs near her home outside Erie. The dogs, which belonged to a neighbor, left her badly injured; she died in a ditch of hypothermia.
“We also need to eliminate dogfighting, not only because it is harmful to dogs, but also because it endangers our communities through the many illegal activities that accompany it.”
National Canine Research Council