Child Protective Services: Pt 2

I felt like my son didn't matter. That, that dog is more important.
Gerald Eaves, in Pit bull attacks 7 year old

* * * * *

Revised 10pm March 21

To: US DHHS, Administration for Children and Families
      Region 1: Mary Ann Higgins
      Region 2: Joyce Thomas
      Region 3: David Lett
      Region 4: Carlis Williams
      Region 5: Kent Wilcox
      Region 6: Leon R McCowan
      Region 7:  Patricia Brown
      Region 8: Thomas Sullivan
      Region 9: Sharon Fujii
      Region 10:  Steve Henigson
      Child Welfare League of America, American Humane Association, and dozens of state Child Protective Services officials, and others

One week ago SRUV reported on the pit bull attack on the three-year old daughter of Jonathan Diaz, and his subsequent efforts to protect the dog. We also noted that the Diaz case is far from unique. The attacks listed below, all of which occurred during the week since the previous post, represent only a sampling of the attacks on children. In several of the attacks over the past week, the attacking dog had a known aggressive history.

• March 13; 4 y.o. attacked; St Cloud, FL
• March 15: 2nd grader attacked; Ashboro NC
• March 16; 6 y.o. attacked; Crafton Heights, PA
• March 19; 9 y.o. attacked; San Antonio, TX
• March 19; 4 y.o. child attacked; Euclid, OH
• March 20; 10 m.o. attacked by family pit bull; Newark, DE
• March 21; 7 y.o. attacked; Catoosa, TN

The roll call of pit bull attacks on children is exploding exponentially.  According to statistics gathered over the last 30 years, 61% of the pit bull attacks on children have occurred in the past 10 years;  37% in the past four years;  24% in the past two years.*

SRUV has struggled to understand why pit bull advocacy groups continue to insist that fighting breeds are like any other dog. And why they continue to place fighting dogs in homes as family pets.

Fortunately, all of the victims of the attacks listed on this page survived. Many of these pit bull attacks are disfiguring attacks, with economic costs ranging to the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars; the human cost is incalculable.


* * * * *

Related Post: Child Protective Services, Pt 1

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks

* Statistics are from Dog Attack Deaths & Maimings (Mar 8, 2012), published by Animal People.

Child Protective Services: Pt 1

You have a family that seemingly put this dog over this girl's safety.
John Welsh, Riverside County Dept of Animal Services

* * * * * *

To: US DHHS, Administration for Children and Families
      Region 1: Mary Ann Higgins
      Region 2: Joyce Thomas
      Region 3: David Lett
      Region 4: Carlis Williams
      Region 5: Kent Wilcox
      Region 6: Leon R McCowan
      Region 7:  Patricia Brown
      Region 8: Thomas Sullivan
      Region 9: Sharon Fujii
      Region 10:  Steve Henigson
      Child Welfare League of America, American Humane Association, and dozens of state Child Protective Services officials, and others

The three year old daughter of Jonathan Diaz was attacked by his brother's pit bull.  The child suffered a "disfiguring bite" and received 150 stitches on the left side of her face. This was the second time the child had been attacked by the dog in two months. The pit bull was unlicensed, unneutered, and Diaz could not provide records of inoculations.

Family members told police the child was attacked by a stray dog, and Diaz removed the pit bull from the house to hide it from authorities. "There was a lot of purposeful misinformation that law enforcement received," according to Riverside County Animal Services.

Diaz is currently in jail awaiting drug charges, and has been arrested on suspicion of felony child endangerment.The Diaz case may seem to be a rare, isolated event. Sadly, this is not the truth. (See the links below).

According to the March 2012 Dog Attack Deaths and Maimings, 52% of the disfiguring attacks on children are by pit bulls, even though they comprise only 3.3% of the dog population.*  Many of these attacks come from well-cared for family pets which have not previously demonstrated aggressive behavior.

Why are tragic events involving pit bull attacks on children escalating?

Public sentiment is in favor of stronger restrictions on fighting breeds, yet pit bull advocacy groups protect these breeds and insist they are suitable family pets. Pit bull advocacy groups intimidate legislators with squads of full-time attorneys and massive public relations campaigns. When it comes to fighting breeds, we can no longer depend on conflicted animal welfare groups nor on legislators vulnerable to the powerful pit bull lobby to protect our children.

We must find another way to protect children in homes which harbor fighting breeds; Child Protective Services (CPS) can lead the way. We urge CPS and Family Service organizations to recognize the existence of a fighting breed dog in a family situation as child endangerment.

* * * * *

Sources: Father arrested pit bull bites 3 yo daughter (Mar 9, 2012)
              Dog bite leads to child endangerment arrest
              Mom arrested after pit bull attack on daughter (Mar 12, 2012)
              Baby fatally mauled by pit bull

Related post: Letter to Oregon Dept of Child Services

*Statistics are from Dog Attack Deaths & Maimings (Mar 8, 2012), published by Animal People.

Google News: Today's pit bull attacks

The War Room

D.A.Pennebaker's landmark 1993 film The War Room documented the 1992 Clinton Presidential campaign. The film follows Communications Director George Stephanopoulos and Lead Strategist James Carville, both of whom later became media celebrities. The film documents the media revolution that occurred during the campaign; at the end of the movie we are unsure whether Stephanopoulos and Carville were creators of the media revolution, or if they were simply more adept at exploiting trends already underway. The inner sanctum where Carville and Stephanopoulos plotted their strategies was called The War Room.

One of the most effective tactics of the campaign was the rapid response to every single news event or charge from the opposing campaign: no event was allowed to go unanswered or unchallenged. The pit bull advocacy campaign employs a similar political strategy; after each pit bull attack the advocates hit the wires with pit-positive stories to neutralize the news.

Over the last months there have been hundreds of legitimate news accounts of pit bull attacks, and always there are stories and editorials in response which deflect attention from the attack. The pit advocacy War Room response follows on the heels of the original news and sometimes it even appears in the same newspaper.

The pit advocacy follow-up often avoids mention of the attack and nearly always employs stock rhetorical phrases. The stories are so similar they would appear to be plagiarism if the articles were serious journalism; they lead us to suspect that the journalists have been reading a list of "talking points."

Here are some examples of recent pit bull attacks, with the subsequent responses from the pit bull War Room.

* * * * * 

San Diego, CA;  June 18, 2011

A:  Attack on 75 year-old  Emako Mendoza in her fenced backyard by neighbor's pit bull. Original news coverage in SignOnSanDiego.com and elsewhere.

B:  June 23; the career pit bull advocate Michael Mountain posts a bathetic defense of the pit bulls which  killed Ms Mendoza. Mountain, host of the StubbyDog blog, titled his post In San Diego Attack, Dogs Were Victims Too. This piece of shameless pit advocacy demonstrates a callous disregard of the victim.

Boulder, CO;  July 4, 2011

A: Attack on Michael O'Neill; news coverage in the Boulder Daily Camera

B: In an extraordinary move the editorial board of the Daily Camera allowed Clay Evans, pit bull advocate (and incidentally the Features and Entertainment editor of the Daily Camera at the time) to represent the editorial board with an editorial response. The opinion piece ran on July 7 and borrowed an overused pit bull advocacy slogan for its title: Not About the Breed.

Amarillo, TX; October 3, 2011
A: On October 4th, the Amarillo Globe-News publishes an account of the canine homicide of an eleven-day old infant.
B: In an extraordinary response, the Amarillo Globe-News published an advocacy piece, also dated October 4th. This piece, like many pit advocacy stories, interviews three pit bull advocates. SRUV previously reported on this extraordinary publishing event in our Rapid Response.

Bridgewater, MA; Dec 1, 2011
A:  Facial disfigurement attack on 71 year-old Normanda Torres by the family pit bull. Original news coverage carried on EnterpriseNews.com, the Boston Globe, and elsewhere.
B: Within three days the Enterprise News rolled over and began publishing a SERIES of pit advocacy stories, including:

• Dec 4: Pit Bull Owners: Blame the Owners, Not the Dogs 
• Dec 7: Owners, not breeds, must be focus in wake of dog bite (484 words)
• Dec 8: Owners, not breeds, must be focus in wake of dog bite (Revised, 422 words)

SRUV notes that this attack,  in which the pit bull ate parts of a woman's face, is calmly referred to as a bite. A bite.


* * * * *

Google news -- Today's pit bull attacks