More on that pitbull shooting we heard about last week.
Tony Krickl had an article in yesterday's Courier about the incident. Krickl explains that the dog was one of two pitbulls that belonged to a Claremont Village resident. Both dogs apparently got loose, chased a jogger, and then threatened a man walking his Lhasa Apso.
Tony Krickl's article tells what happened next:
Anne Seltzer, who lives on 8th Street just south of Memorial Park, said she heard some commotion in the front of her home and came out to inspect what was going on.
Ms. Seltzer saw the dogs attacking the smaller white dog. She decided to use her garden hose to spray the dogs, hoping to diffuse the attack.
One of the dogs was scared off by the water and ran away, Ms. Seltzer said. The 81-year-old man was able to retrieve his dog and take it away to safety.
The other dog, Harley, did not run away and remain in a "threatening position." "I was afraid the dog was going to charge," Ms. Seltzer said.
When Claremont Police Officer Andrew Mitchell arrived at the scene, he called out to the dog in order to get its attention away from Ms. Seltzer. According to Cpt. Jenkins, who reviewed video of the incident from Officer Mitchell’s dashboard camera, Harley charged at the officer.
When Harley was 4 to 6 feet away, Officer Mitchell shot her 4 times, Cpt. Jenkins said.
Krickl also wrote about the incident on his blog, Courier City Beat. On CCB Krickl seems to be a little more free in his observations and has the luxury of linking to various references such as a 2006 New Yorker article about pitbulls.
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We think the responsibility for this entire affair lies with the owner, named in the Courier article as Deanne Anderson, 26, of Claremont. We don't care about the so-called "broken" fence. In our view it is the owner's absolute responsibility to to control her animals. Call us harsh, but when a pack of dogs--and the two dogs were instinctively acting out pack behavior--go after a jogger, knock an 81-year old into the bushes, and attack another smaller animal, it's on the owner.And what kind of brainpower does it take in this day and age to understand this: when you own two pitbulls, given the very bad press associated with pitbulls, you bear even heightened responsibility.
We wish the police officer had found a better way to control the hapless Harley, but we by no means second-guess him on this one. We grieve for the dog. Who could not have sympathy looking at the picture in the Courier? The dog was doing what dogs do, and why the Death Penalty for that?
Nope; this one falls squarely on the owner, and she'll be lucky if she doesn't face an expensive, complicated, and ultimately unhappy series of administrative and legal actions ending with her other dog being taken away and put down.
And the police thought this item was "not newsworthy"?
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