Dog mauling victim, 2-year old Jacob Bisbee, seen in a family photograph.
One Year in County Jail
UPDATE 07/07/14: Nearly four years after the brutal pit bull mauling death of 2-year old Jacob Bisbee, the owner of the dogs, 56-year old Steven Hayashi of Concord, was sentenced to one year in county jail and three years formal probation. Hayashi was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in April and could have been sentenced to 10-years in state prison. On July 22, 2010 Jacob was killed by three of Hayashi's five pit bulls. The dogs had a history of violence.
The trial of Hayashi was held in August 2013 -- Hayashi waved his right to a jury. The Contra Costa Times described his trial as having a "sporadic schedule." In April 2014, Judge John Kennedy of Contra Costa County Superior Court found Hayashi guilty of involuntary manslaughter and two other felonies in connection to Jacob's death. Hayashi remained free until his sentencing in July. On Monday, Judge Kennedy allowed Hayashi to remain free pending an appeal.
08/05/10: Dogs Had Killed Three Pets
In a surreal update concerning Steven Hayashi, whose pit bulls killed his 2-year old step-grandson last month, it was revealed in court this morning that Hayashi's dogs had killed more than one family pet. Prosecutor Mary Knox said that the pit bulls killed two other family pets in the same time period -- a parrot and an Akita, "who had poked its head into a room containing the dogs." The mauling suffered by the Akita was so severe that its head was torn off, Knox said.
Knox told the court that on the morning of the attack, Hayashi left to play tennis with his 13-year old son and did not wake his wife nor ask his 19-year old son to care for the young brothers. He also admitted to police that he failed to secure the two locks on the garage door before leaving. Previously charged with two felonies, Hayashi now faces enhanced charges. The Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office added a death enhancement to the child abuse charge.
07/24/10: Hayashi's Jailhouse Interview
In a jailhouse interview Friday, Hayashi said doesn't believe he is "totally responsible" for the boy's death, but acknowledged that he had ignored warning signs -- including when one of his dogs killed his Chihuahua. Prior to the attack that struck down his step-grandson, Hayashi believed that pit bull owners, and not the dogs themselves, were the problem. He also explains how he ended up with five pit bulls: The first pit bull, adopted from a shelter, was unsterilized and pregnant.
Changed his view
Before the tragedy, Hayashi said he had always believed that pit bull owners -- and not the dogs themselves -- were the problem.
"Well, I used to think that way," he said. "That's what got me into this mess, just thinking that they're just regular dogs. I can understand a dog biting or nipping, but to maul somebody until he's dead? To tear out somebody's face?"1
Not a 'social outcast'
"I personally don't think I should be behind bars because I made a bad decision about keeping the dogs," Hayashi said. "I'm not like (a) social outcast. I just made a bad decision about keeping the dogs."
The dog that killed his Chihuahua, he said, was Kiwi, a male who was about 6 months old at the time.
"It was my responsibility to do the appropriate action when it happened," Hayashi said. But he said he had decided to keep all five dogs "because I didn't have the heart to euthanize them."
Hayashi said he believes Kiwi was primarily responsible for Jacob's mauling. He said he wasn't sure if the two other dogs in the garage, Sadie, a 3-year-old female, and Jake, a 1 1/2-year-old male, took part.
The family's two other pit bulls, Max and C.J., both year-old males, were in the yard at the time. (Henry K. Lee, San Francisco Chronicle)
Sadie should have never been adopted unsterilized. California state law prohibits the adoption of unsterilized pets over the age of 8 weeks old. This law was designed to prevent multiple unwanted litters, which leads to the neglect and euthanasia of countless animals.
07/23/10: Authorities Charge Dogs' Owner
Concord police have arrested the child's step-grandfather, Steven Hayashi, 52, on suspicion of child endangerment and owning a mischievous animal that causes great bodily injury or death -- both felonies. The charges come after his three pit bulls killed Jacob Bisbee this morning. Hayashi wasn't home during the incident, but told police that he owned the three pit bulls involved in the attack as well as two others. All five dogs were euthanized today by animal services.
Police Lt. Jim Lardieri said the dogs attacked the toddler when he walked into the garage. The victim's grandmother and 19-year old uncle were in the house at the time, as was the boy's brother and teenage cousin. The victim's father also lives at the home. Officials spent the day at the home gathering evidence. At one point, they removed a caged ferret and two unloaded shotguns. Ferrets are illegal to own, but no charges in connection with the shotguns are expected.
Rapid fire response Concord and Contra Costa County officials -- Good job!
07/22/10: Pet Pit Bulls Kill 2-Year Old Boy
Concord, CA - In a developing story, another California child is dead after being attacked by his family's pet pit bulls. Police say the child walked into the garage where three of the family's five pet pit bulls were kept. The dogs attacked the child inflicting severe injuries. He was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly thereafter. The three dogs involved in the attack, and two other pit bulls that lived in the yard, were taken into custody by Contra Costa County Animal Services.
View the DogsBite.org Google Map: California Fatal Pit Bull Maulings.Related articles:
05/28/10: 2010 Fatality: 2-Year Old San Bernardino Boy Killed by Family Pit Bull
01/12/10: 2010 Fatality: Pet Pit Bull Kills 3-Year Old Boy in Apple Valley
10/27/09: 2009 Fatality: 19-Month Old Boy Killed by Pit Bull-Mix at Babysitter's Home
ditto P
The State of California did it's citizens an injustice by passing a law forbiding BSL. Wonder if Ar-nold is aware of this?
Undoubtably another pit nutter family that "swears" by their pit bulls. Probably lots of photos in the house of babies and pit bulls. Five dogs means they were breeding, God knows there can never be enough pit bulls to go around. I am thoroughly disgusted at the number of California toddlers getting annihilated by "pet" family pit bulls.
i hope the charges are increased.
the PBF nutters have expressed their condolences.
"The step-grandfather has been arrested for child endangerment.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/24355109/detail.html
The toddler and the dogs all pay the ultimate price for his irresponsibility."
good one heartbullies
http://www.pitbullforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=137927
OMG! There are already 572 comments on the SFGate story!
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article/comments/view?f=/c/a/2010/07/22/BA701EIDTO.DTL
CLASSIC!
whonew said: 6:59 PM on July 22, 2010
I have a crocodile at home, he is very friendly and loves children. There are two in his belly right now. Please do not consider all crocodiles to be bad, some are bad and they unfortunately ruin the reputation of the others.
Please give a crocodile a good home.
Thank-you.
California forbids banning/BSL but not MSN for pits and pit types. You can't ban them but you can pass mandatory spay/neuter for them. Seems that when LA took up the subject instead of doing it just for pits, they included all breeds. Others have followed that route. San Bernardino County just passed MSN for pits only.
San Bernardino passed their MSN as a "population control" ordinance rather than a vicious/dangerous dog ordinance. Only opposition on the final reading was the Orange Empire Kennel Club. The Board of Supervisors were even shocked at the lack of opposition, they had expected it. Maybe it is just a matter of presentation. Who could argue with trying to stop the euthanization of pits in the shelters? The nutters would look foolish going against that.
It is a matter of time, folks, before lawmakers come to their senses and pass specific, effective laws eliminating this breed. England did it 1991. This is where the dogs originate! What does that tell you? The owner of the dogs, based on the newspaper articles, very clearly had knowledge of the dogs propensity to be aggressive. Is there a pit bull owner out there that doesn't? Gimme a break. Like the 1979 Alaska article, "A pit bull that hasn't killed another dog is a pit bull that hasn't got loose".
Who in their right mind keeps dogs in their freakin' garage? Oh, wait, pit nutter. Disregard the first part of that sentence.
I'm glad they're filing criminal charges, but they're not severe enough. Homicide charges, please. Whenever these dogs kill, that's exactly what it is, homicide by canine.
"The State of California did it's citizens an injustice by passing a law forbiding BSL. Wonder if Ar-nold is aware of this?"
It was my understanding that the governor lifted this BSL ban (which the dog fighters and pit bull breeders created and had put into law) or was it just for San Francisco so they could have mandatory spay neuter of pit bulls (which has been a huge success, for people and pit bulls)
BSL means that breeders have to be licensed, and the breeders, particularly the dog fighter breeders, of course don't want to be law-abiding and licensed because they are committing tax evasion at the least and federal crimes at the worst.
That's why they oppose BSL and licensing, and puppy mill regulation too.
Dog breeding, especially pit bull breeding, is one of the most criminal enterprises in the country, in so many ways. It is sad that some legislators help them.
"Who in their right mind keeps dogs in their freakin' garage? "
There are so many reasons.
One is that breeders hide their breeding operations, and also are breaking zoning laws, etc., so the dogs get secreted.
On a California theme, there is a strong Hawaii-California dog fighting breeding connection. Breeders shipping dogs back and forth.
Bad Rap of the Bay Area is advising pit bull advocates to say "nothing" to reporters!
It's unreasonable and unwise to comment on dog-related cases while investigators are still trying to decipher who/what/why. Some things we do know: The media is not a reliable source of information on dog breeds or the circumstances surrounding dog attacks. And since stories change constantly, what seems apparent today will have shifted ten times by next week.
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http://badrap-blog.blogspot.com/2010/07/concord-tragedy-phones-are-ringing.html
Contra Costa will no doubt be adopting a pit bull spay neuter law soon. This case reeks of a home spun pit bull breeding operation. Just like in San Bernardino County last month, not a single pit nutter will show up at council to oppose it. Public sympathy for pit bull owners in California after a child is ripped to shreds is zilch at this point!
Some of the news reports are referring back to the 2005 Concord attack. I think I understand now why Concord authorities have acted so speedily.
DeCosta said his office wants a face-to-face interview with Bray. He also defended his office's handling of past complaints regarding Bray's dogs. He said there wasn't enough evidence in the previous incidents to label Bray's dogs "dangerous," a designation that would have required Bray to seek a special permit and buy $50,000 in insurance coverage.
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http://articles.sfgate.com/2005-03-31/bay-area/17366601_1_pit-bulls-dogs-two-other-pit
In a separate video, he said that he got one female from a shelter that was pregnant?
"I got it from the animal shelter and the dog came already pregnant. The animal shelter did not realize, because I remember the animal shelter told me that I needed to get him fixed. And that dog hadn't had any other contact with any other dog. So it tells me that it became pregnant at the shelter."
I thought there was a law in CA that prevented adopting out unsterilized pets?
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http://cbs5.com/pets/fatal.dog.attack.2.1821416.html
Trigger, there is a law, the Vincent Bill, passed along with the Hayden Act, the worst piece of legislation ever. The Vincent Bill was passed primarily to stop breeders from obtaining breeding stock from the shelters but was marketed as a population control measure. However, there is no power of enforcement behind it. The vets don't help either because many of them are against early spay/neuter or rather their surgerical skills are not up to the task. One large Humane Society does early spay/neuter and has been since 1998, when the Vincent was passed. They've made an effort to see if there are problems with early spay/neuter like the breeders say. Nothing, haven't had any reported problems because of early s/n. They do upwards of 60 animals a day, everyday for the last 12 years, that's lots of dogs and cats.
What it comes down to is that a shelter or rescue can forego the law and nothing can be done about it. Another stupid move for that state, pass a law that means nothing really. The Hayden Act that was passed at the same time, the mandate that it created was recently repealed by Ar-nold. No Kill'ers loved this legislation, it applied to hold times, etc. It had a mandate attached that they overlooked. That mandate actually paid shelters to euthanize, not adopt. It said that the shelters would get the additional money that was spent to fulfill this law from their adoption fees but the ones not adopted that cost extra money for the hold times were the ones the mandate paid for. In essence paying the shelters to euthanize. Smaller shelters with tight or no budgets had no incentive to not euthanize thus setting CA shelters back, instead of moving them forward. And they wonder why it's called LaLaLand.
He mentioned a Lake County shelter.
Could this be the shelter that gave out this unaltered and pregnant pit bull?
http://www.lakecountyanimalservices.org/info/
If so, they are pulling fighting dogs and bite cases from animal control without knowing a thing about these dogs, then just handing them out like candy, and not even doing appropriate adoptions.
I see that in their list of supplied services for foster homes that there is no spay neuter mentioned. An animal should not even go to a foster home without being spayed and neutered.
If this is the shelter, they have tremendous liability.
And their actions got an innocent chihuahua killed first. Can you imagine being so irresponsible as to place a pit bull in a household with small dogs?
These shelters are being run without regard to safety or even common sense, or even humane treatment of animals. They "saved the life" of a pit bull, only to create a large number of pit bulls, kill a chihuahua, and now kill and injure people.
When will the people running these shelters accept that they are doing terrible harm to animals and people by placing these pit bulls?
They aren't saving lives, they are killing through pit bull placement.
And again, we see pit bulls with dog aggression that continue on to KILL CHILDREN.
No dog aggressive pit bull should ever be placed. These shelters now know there is a pattern, and this is a warning sign that a pit bull is deadly to humans.
It has gotten to the point that animal shelters are committing cruelty to animals and people by placing pit bulls.
Look at all these. Many unaltered, getting pulled out of animal control, ex fighting dogs, bite cases. These people are just giving them out to anyone who will take them. It is just insanity! These dogs are going to kill someone.
https://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=315981960716&share_id=269093993717&comments=1
These people are not helping anything, they are just hurting all involved.
And animal control is just handing out unaltered pit bulls to anyone who will take them, then they get handed on.
They all are setting up another situation just like this tragedy.
In regards to early spay/neuter, my impression from talking with vets that do support it is that vets who don't do it are not that good surgically. One vet I know has been doing it for over 20 years. He does nothing but s/n and his appointments are booked in minutes. I think a female is 13 minutes and a male is 7-9 minutes. So this means a very short time on anesthesia. He rarely had a dog stay overnite, unlike some vets wanting to make extra with an overnite visit. No e-collars and I never needed pain medication for the many he did for me. And all of them were up and about within 6 hours of surgery as if nothing happened.
But spay/neuter is not a remedy for the inborn aggressiveness of the pit bull. Vets will tell you that there is only a 50/50 chance of changing temperament and that depends on the age of it being done. So the earlier the altering, the better chance of you have of changing temperament but 50/50 is not good enough to risk when you speak of pit bulls, at least in my book. And it is deceiving to say that altering will change a pit because of their genetics, may apply to other breeds, not to pits.
Excuse me, but Mr. Hayashi said in a different interview (there were multiple interviews) that after the first litter, he kept two pit bulls for his son and gave the rest away. Then Sadie got pregnant again and he ended up with two more. The SF article clearly implies that Sadie had two litters and each litter was comprised of two dogs. Now that does NOT make sense. Sure, it's possible to have litters this small, but its not normal.
"I know for a fact that my father loves my son and I know for a fact it was an accident," he said. "I hope we get (my father) back because my family needs him to heal. It's not just the loss of my son my family needs him to heal. We can't heal without my dad. He doesn't deserve to go to prison"
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http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Father-of-Boy-Mauled-by-Pit-Bull-Breaks-His-Silence.html
have you seen this crazy update?
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_15683906?source=most_viewed&nclick_check=1
"Prosecutor Mary Knox said today that the dogs killed two other family pets in the same time period — a parrot and an Akita, a large-breed dog who had poked its head into a room containing the dogs. The mauling suffered by the Akita was so severe that its head was bitten off, Knox said."
wow
This man also had an AKITA? So at one point this man had 7 household dogs, 6 being fighting breeds? This man is a nut job and negligent to the max!
In other Contra Costa news…
There is a spay neuter law in the works for wiggle butts.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_15684911
And…
Details also emerged claiming the dogs had previously showed aggression towards the 2-year-old victim and his older, 4-year-old brother before the fatal attack in July.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/incontracosta/detail?entry_id=69491
For him to sit there and say that he had no idea that a pit bull could pull the face off of a child after they pulled the HEAD off of his Akita shows him to be a liar in the worst possible way. This was a HOMICIDE, plain and simple.
A reporter told me that one of the maulspawn has already been surrended because it was showing signs of aggressiveness.