3-Year-Old Critical After Being Mauled By Pit Bull

NBC ^ | 1/31/06

[iPod Shuffle]

NBC10.com 3-Year-Old Critical After Being Mauled By Pit Bull

POSTED: 3:14 pm EST January 30, 2006 UPDATED: 9:07 am EST January 31, 2006

NEW CASTLE, Del. -- A 3-year-old girl remains in critical condition at Christiana Hospital.

Police said the incident happened on Oakmont Avenue at 10:30 a.m. in New Castle.

Police and paramedics responded after they received the report of a child who was attacked by a pit bull. When they arrived, they found Destiny Campbell suffering from massive head and shoulder injuries.

Police said the victim and her mother had driven to a home to pick up the child's grandmother. While inside the home, a dog, named Diamond, attacked the child. Police said that the attack was unprovoked.

A group of area residents responded to the calls for help from relatives and began beating the dog with sticks and broom handles.

The SPCA later responded to the scene and caught the dog, which had fled from the residents.

Witnesses said that the dog was generally peaceful and calmed down immediately after the attack.

"After this happened, the dog appeared to be polite. The tail was wagging. Even when the SPCA arrived and had to corral the dog with the lasso, the dog was still listening," said Trinidad Navarro, of the New Castle County Police Department.

The pit bull belonged to a family member, Turquoise Robinson. Police took her into custody on unrelated charges.

As she was being taken into custody on Monday afternoon, Robinson saw NBC 10 reporter Tim Furlong near a police car waiting to take her away.

"Why are they taking you away?" asked Furlong, as Robinson walked by.

Robinson then spit on the reporter as a cameraman taped the incident, and she responded, "that's why."

Police then charged Robinson with spitting on Furlong.

Robinson has not been charged in connection with the pit bull attack.

[Casloy]

Police said that the attack was unprovoked.

Typically dumb statement. What in the world could a three year old do to provoke an attack like that? I have had lots of labs and sheperds and there is nothing a 3 year old could do that would elicit more than a quick reaction snap with little if any harm done to the child. Even then the child would have to catch the dog by surprise and hurt it. I suppose if the child had provoked this attack it would make more sense?

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

The jaws lock unlike all other breeds. It is an official AKC breed of dog. I also do not think the cross breeding will give them such a feature.

[Finny]

Scary isn't the word for it. When that Rottweiler growled at me (it was only about three feet away) and seconds later a pitt bull came rushing down to its aid, I honestly felt like it might be my last few moments on this earth.

Immediately after I got over the extreme fear, I felt extreme anger. When I told my husband, he got on my case for wallking without packing -- although even a pistol probably wouldn't have saved me because these dogs were mere feet away. From now on I will take a friend's advice and carry a water pistol filled with straight ammonia and have it in hand. I don't like to pack a pistol under such circumstances not because it's illegal here in in California without an impossible-to-get carry license, but because you can't have it at-the-ready without being conspicuously illegal, and also because I sometimes tresspass on city property high in the hills; on the off-chance that I got nabbed by some bureaucrat, I'd like NOT to get slammed with a weapons charge! I figure a face full of pure ammonia will stop a bad human as well as a bad dog.

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Some of those jerks feed the dogs gunpowder. It makes 'em nutty...

[Finny]

I think you have to have training and permit for mace. Have you ever had anything to do with straight ammonia? It is ghastly -- does to pans what oven-cleaner does. It's VERY nasty stuff. My husband once had a tangle with a pit bull who lived on the other side of a cyclone fence where he worked -- the dog viciously snarled and barked at him frequently through the fence. My husband finally got fed up, put some straight ammonia in a spray bottle, and shot the dog in the butt with it. He NEVER had problems with the dog again. I think it would be as potent as mace and a LOT cheaper! And I'm a Scot -- it's part of my cultural heritage to be cheap! ;^)

[ARridgerunner]

I think that's a good definiton.

Better think again, then. Pitbulls are canines, not crocodiles. Their jaws do not lock. Scientific fact, Pastor, and your definiton would be laughed out of court.

[New Girl]

I'm with you. I am a dog lover and owner and I have personally rescued three dogs from the shelter but I believe pits should be banned. Whenever I am at a dog park and a fight breaks out, 95% of the time the dog that started the fight turns out to be a pit. It's unbelievable. Even the pits that appear to have loving owners end up displaying aggressive behavior by constantly humping or trailing other dogs. The pit does not appear to like other dogs, small children and if it happens to bite, it will NOT LET GO. Why would anyone want a dog like this? It's like having a walking liability.

[Wristpin]

It's the high prey drive and the power of the animal that is the problem.

[drhogan]

TABLE 1. Dog breeds and crossbreeds* involved in dog-bite-related fatalities, by 2-year period -- United States, 1979-1996 +

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Category 1979-1980 1981-1982 1983-1984 1985-1986 1987-1988 1989-1990 1991-1992 1993-1994 1995-1996 Total

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Breed
"Pit bull" 2 5 10 9 12 8 6 5 3 60
Rottweiler 0 0 1 1 3 1 3 10 10 29
German shepherd 2 1 5 1 1 5 2 0 2 19
"Husky" 2 1 2 2 0 2 2 1 2 14
Alaskan malamute 2 0 3 1 0 2 3 1 0 12
Doberman Pinscher 0 1 0 2 2 2 1 0 0 8
Chow Chow 0 1 0 0 0 2 3 0 2 8
Great Dane 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 6
St. Bernard 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 4
Akita 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 0 4

Crossbreed
Wolf hybrid 0 1 1 2 1 4 1 2 2 14
German shepherd 0 2 0 2 2 2 0 1 2 11
"Pit bull" 0 1 0 3 2 & 3 1 1 0 10 &
"Husky" 0 1 1 2 1 1 0 0 0 6
Alaskan malamute 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 3
Rottweiler 0 0 0 0 1 & 1 0 1 1 3 &
Chow Chow 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 3
No. incidents for which breed known 10 20 27 24 22 35 24 25 22 199

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* Data shown only for breeds and crossbreeds involved in four or more fatalities. Each breed contributing to the crossbreed is counted only once.
+ For 1979-1994, data obtained from the Humane Society of the United States registry, NEXIS database accounts, and death certificates.
& One fatality also involved a single breed.

[drhogan]

these are the cdc stats on breeds involved in fatalities. the columns didn't line up right, but at least it shows the relative order.
however, you might have to divide the cdc numbers by the number of individual dogs of each particular breed that live in the US to get a true measure of dangerousness.
and of course, these stats don't control for craziness of owners.

[drhogan]

i don't see Irish Wolfhounds anywhere on this list, so i'm guessing they were not bred for viciousness.
some breeds of dogs were probably bred for traits like intelligence and gentleness, but i don't know enough about dog breeds to know which ones.

[sangrila]

It was more likely that you transmitted your own fear of the pit bull into your dog.

[sangrila]

Yeah a lot of really great communities and governments have banned certain dog breeds. Places like England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Scandinavian nations, Australia, and Ottawa are some of the shining examples of nations and places that have banned certain dog breeds. I won't leave out those well-run liberal sewers in the US either. They include DC, Detroit, Boston, LA, Chicago, Denver, PG County MD, and basically any other place were moron liberal politicians try to divert attention from the fact that their cities are overrun by criminals who sell drugs, murder people, and train dogs to attack. Banning dogs is just a diversion from the real problem. Pit bulls are the most common dog in the country by many estimates. They are also trained as guard and attack dogs more than any other breed. The statistics that reflect pit bull attacks are inaccurate for several reasons many of which are pointed out by the organization that keeps the statistics, the CDC.

1) External factors that are always present in human fatalities caused by attacks that have lead an overwhelming number of the researchers in this field to conclude that no evidence exists that breed is a decisive factor in these attacks. The factors include:

a) Almost all dogs involved in fatal attacks were the direct result of the dogs training. Either they were bred as guard dogs, or these dogs were abused, tortured, and poorly socialized. In many instances the dogs were used as a murder weapon by someone ordering it to attack. There are also instances of people in these horrible ghettos throwing their babies to attack dogs and these instances go down in CDC stats.

b) An overwhelming number of the dogs were kept chained on short chains which has been proven to be a major factor and a common tactic used to make a dog ferocious.

c) Gross negligence is always a factor in the attack. Either dogs escape from their owners because they are not properly housed, or they are present but not properly supervising or adequately controlling the dog.

d) And perhaps most importantly, 90% of all documented fatal attacks are caused by an unneutered male dog. Of the 10% that are not cause by unnetured males. There has never been a documented attack by a neutered male pit bull.


2) The statistics are not adequately put into context. First of all, pit bulls are possible the most common breed in the US. There are millions of them. The statistics never refer to any specific breed when they bring up pit bulls. They refer to pit bull type dogs in which include: American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT), American Staffordshire Terrier (AMST), Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Bull Terriers, Bull Mastiffs, Canary Island Dogs, Brazilian Mastiffs, Argentine Dogs, and any other type of bulldog or bull dog mix, all put under the generic word pit bull. So You are comparing the statistics of 10+ breeds with an enormous to the statistics of single breeds with much smaller populations. If all these bull dogs are the same group, then why aren't Malamutes and Huskies in the same group. If they were they would both move way up on the list. The stats compare apples to oranges and then change the definition of pit bull somewhere in between defining them and blaming them for other dogs actions and trying to figure out what breeds to ban. So most dogs blamed in pit bull attacks are actually not the breeds that the misinformed and uneducated politicians try to ban. The breeds they try to ban are the APBT and the AmStaff, which are only responsible for all fraction of the attacks labled under the pit bull category.


3) The statistics do not include descriptions of the people who were responsible for the dogs involved in the attacks. The fact is that these an overwhelming majority of these instances occur in run-down ghettos, were crime runs rampant. This doesn't happen in nice neighborhoods very often. It usually happens in public housing were tenants are not even allowed to own dogs, but no one enforces the rules.


So I hope people take those attack percentages with some skepticism because all reasonable people know what can happen with stats. The primary thing people should realize is that it is always the person's fault when a dog attacks. These people choose breeds like pit bulls, Rottweilers, German Shepherds disproportionately for obvious reasons. It is because these are strong, athletic, intelligent dogs. One reason I believe pits are extra popular in urban areas is because of their small size that helps people fit them in these small ghetto places.


Most of these people use the tactics I mentioned above of torturing theses dogs in order to make them ferocious, insane attack dogs. They use them for their various criminal enterprises. When their dogs escape and kill someone theses people do not come out and say, yeah he was a trained attack dog. So the liberal media believes these low-life thugs and calls the dog "family pets" and tarnishes the images of all real family pets that happen to be pit bulls, Rotts, GS, Chows or any other dog that really is a socialized family pet. Liberals love anything that diverts attention from the fact that democrats run cities into the ground and make excuses for minorities who turn to crime. The liberal media scapegoats white people, the police, guns, and dogs when the real problem is poor leadership from democrats and a society that is afraid to address the real problems in urban areas.

The media loves to frighten people and judging by the responses on this thread the do a good job. These inflated statistics that say pit bulls cause 5 of these attacks a year are still small despite being exaggerated. That is 5 out of a population of millions of dogs which are disproportionately located in heavily populated urban areas with lots of people. A lot of things kill more than 5 people a years. More than 5 out of a few million people commit murder. I wonder why so many of you have such high faith in NBC from Delaware.

The only problem with Pit bulls is the the fact that a large number of criminals and irresponsible people own them because hip hop thug culture glorifies the fighting aspect of the breed. These people have taken a breed that was once the most respected breed in America and dragged its reputation down into its low level.If pit bulls were no longer available then they would just ruin another breed's reputation.This great breed pays the price along with the many good and responsible people who love the breed. These people do not get good ratings on the news.

All the people who attacked the character of all pit bull owners are ignorant. Pit bulls are very popular in sports like Schutzhund, and are a respected breed among people who are knowledgeable about dogs. They are rated as excellent dogs by the AKC and UKC and by many Veterinary organizations. Most people who own the breed are responsible owners, despite the fact that the bad owners get all the media attention. I have been around a variety of dog breeds and like them all for their various traits. Pit bulls are my favorite. I own an APBT who is very loving, obedient, and well-trained. Many people I know and am involved with through pit bull and dog organizations own APBTs and AmStaffs. These people include Republican politicians, Vietnam War Veterans, Gulf War Veterans, business professionals and various other good people who pay welfare to the ghetto criminals who align themselves with their friends the media to destroy our reputations and those of our dogs. I myself am a former law enforcement officer who worked in one of the worst cities in the country. I still do consulting work for the Federal Government and have a security clearance. I don't appreciate uninformed, ignorant people attacking my chracter or my dog. Pit bulls are not what makes this country dangerous.

[kanawa]

[sangrila]

I knew you'd be out there.

[sangrila]

Keep up the fight up there. I know we had a set back, but we'll get them.

[kanawa]

Provincial court case is pending.
If that doesn't work there's an election in the not too distant future.
We're working on the opposition parties to pledge a comprehensive approach to the problem of irresponsible owners of any breed.
The new federal government has promised to enshrine property rights in the constitution which may give us another avenue of redress.
In addition there are existing constitutional arguments that can be made against this knee-jerk, ill-advised law.

We will not go away, we will never surrender.

[ScreamingFist]

Excellent info. Thank you.