Posted on Friday, December 4th, 2015 at 10:01 pm
While a mother was walking down a Detroit street with her 4-year-old son this past Wednesday, December 3, the pair was reportedly attacked by four pit bulls that mauled the young boy to death. After noticing two of the animals approaching them, the mother made attempts to protect her son before being bitten by one of the dogs. The second went after the boy and was joined by two more pit bulls. The animals then dragged the child underneath a fence away from his mother.
A witness, Yolanda Samuels, dialed 911 as soon as she became aware of the animal attack. Upon arriving at the scene, authorities shot and killed three of the dogs and took the fourth into custody. The boy was rushed to a local hospital, where he unfortunately died of his injuries.
Officers went on to arrest the 51-year-old owner of the dogs, but police have not yet brought charges against the man. Detroit Police Chief James Craig told news agencies, “This is no different than what our officers deal with when they’re dealing with armed suspects,” making note of the exceptionally savage demeanor of the animals.
In a study published in 2009 by DogsBite.org that considered statistics from 2006 to 2008, it was revealed that pit bulls were responsible for 59% of the 88 dog bite fatalities that occurred in that period of time. Of these 88 attacks, 16 occurred off the animal owners’ property; pit bulls accounted for 13 of those off-property attacks.
