Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Paradise Hills

Revised: April 27, 2013; 18:50 GMT
It just makes it frustrating that, you know,
we see everyone else get theirs
.

Neighbor Jesse Catahay, on the disruption of mail delivery to Paradise Hills in San Diego. San Diego has experienced at least four major pit bull attacks in the last ten days.

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Paradise Hills entered the national conscience recently when two pit bulls broke through the fence and attacked 75 year old Emako Mendoza in her back yard on June 18th. But this was not an isolated incident; mail carrier Marcia Amat was attacked nearby last November by two pit bulls while delivering mail on Analiese Way. The first dog lunged for her neck while the second dog attacked her from behind. Neighbors came to her assistance and she escaped from the attack with bites to her hands, shoulders and back.

After the attack, the U.S. Postal Service notified residents of Analiese Way that they would not be getting their mail delivered. Amat has been unable to work for the last seven months and is bringing suit against the owners of the dogs.

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Amat's chances of winning a settlement were slim to begin with but her recent bewildering behavior has sabotaged whatever chance she might have had. The written transcript of a recent TV news story shows Amat torpedoing her chances by calling pit bulls "super sweet dogs."  Where was her attorney during this interview? Our guess is that he has dropped the case for more important chores, like sorting his socks.

Then the interview becomes breathtakingly surreal. The narrative veers off into wonderland when a neighbor offers a discourse on the disruption of mail service (see quotation above).  In the following scene the victim of the pit bull attack sits at her kitchen table and talks into the camera, telling us that the pit bulls are not to blame for attacking her, rambling on that "it's not their fault. It's the owners,  [and] how they're raised."

This, of course, is immediately recognizable pit bull advocacy jargon: Amat is responding with the ritualized  phrases that SRUV has previously described as the Compulsive Reflex. Are there any pit bull owners or advocates who are unaware of these phrases? We think not.

The interview moves to its conclusion on Amat's driveway. The explanation for this disorienting interview is there for us, in a fleeting glimpse of a frame or two at the end of the accompanying video. In a stunning dénouement Mary Amat stands in the driveway of her home, with her own pit bull.




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Pit bulls for sale in Paradise Hills (Zip 92139)
Related posts: Compulsive Reflex; Discredited Sources

Complied from various sources including 10NEWS.COM