Estate, Mother Sue Child Protection and Foster Care Agencies
Relatives identified the 2-year old Topeka girl killed by pit bulls as Piper Dunbar.
Mother Sues State | Lawsuit Filing
UPDATE 10/07/18: The mother of Piper Dunbar, who was mauled to death by two pit bulls on September 24, 2016, filed a federal lawsuit against the Kansas child protection agency and one of its foster care contractors. The complaint states both were negligent in reintegrating Piper back into the home of her father, Donald Dunbar, where "two vicious pit bull dogs" were being kept. Piper was placed back into her father's custody one month before the dogs brutally killed her.
During 2015, Piper was placed into the custody of the Department of Children and Family (DCF) due to the people living at 814 S.E. Carnahan, Dunbar's home, and the overall living conditions being unfit and unsafe. At that time, Dunbar was incarcerated in the state prison system. Piper remained in a safe foster home until August 2016 "when defendants negligently proposed a reintegration," placing her back into her father's custody after he was released from prison.
"At the time of this proposed reintegration, basically the same individuals were still living at 814 S.E. Carnahan and the living conditions at this residence were basically the same as they had been when P.N.D. was taken into state custody because of the unsafe living conditions at 814 S.E. Carnahan." - Huerter v. Kansas
The lawsuit also alleges that Dunbar knew or should have known the two pit bulls were vicious. "For some time prior to September 24, 2016, Donald Dunbar knew, or should have known, that each of these pit bulls was extremely vicious/dangerous with a repeated history of prior attacks and vicious behavior towards other animals and people." If the allegation is true, no information about previous attacks came forth after Piper's mauling death, nor were criminal charges filed.
The lawsuit alleges that DCF and KVC Behavioral Healthcare, Inc. (KVC) also "knew or should have known that these two vicious pit bulls were being kept at 814 S.E. Carnahan Ave. and that these vicious dogs posed an immediate and serious threat to the safety and well-being" of Piper, states the complaint. "However, despite this knowledge, defendants DCF and KVC negligently failed to remove P.N.D. (Piper) from this obviously dangerous and unsafe environment."
After Piper's death, Dunbar told the media that Margaret Jaramillo, the owner of the pit bulls, had only recently begun living at his home. Dunbar also explained a failed "rehoming" attempt due to not wanting the two pit bulls in his home. After Dunbar and Jaramillo dropped the dogs off at an apartment, the guy called up an hour and a half later and said, "You need to come get these dogs," Dunbar said. "We went and picked up the dogs." Dunbar also called them "dogs from hell."
09/29/16: Father Interviewed
In a devastating interview, Donnie Dunbar, the father of little Piper, talks about the night his daughter was killed by two pit bulls. The dogs belonged to Margaret Jaramillo (Johnson), a friend who was temporarily staying at Dunbar's home. Some parts of the video are difficult to understand, but new details emerge, including more information about Jaramillo and her pit bulls, how Dunbar had tried to rehome the dogs before the attack, the tarp and events that occurred that night.
It appears Jaramillo and her pit bulls had only recently started staying with Dunbar. Piper was likely not familiar with the dogs. "[Jaramillo] needed a place to stay," Dunbar said. "I mean she had been staying in a hotel room for three days. "Beautiful dogs stuck in a cage," he said and pointed to an outside area. "Two pit bulls in a cage that no human being, no animal, no convict should be put into," Dunbar said. He mentions placing up panels so the dogs could run free in that area.
"I don't want anybody to judge the pit bull breed because I have had them before. All my friends have pit bulls." - Father of child killed by pit bulls
On Saturday night, Dunbar said he started to watch a movie with Piper, "She fell asleep in my arms. We're in our home, our house," he said. Then Dunbar talks about how he has full custody of Piper and how hard he works to keep his baby. Referring to Jaramillo, he said, "I don't know what name she is going by now. She wakes me up and says, 'Where's Piper?'" The two began to search the home. "We went all over," Dunbar said. He called her mother then quickly called 911.
"The police showed up," Dunbar said. "They searched, they issued an Amber Alert. These men and women they took off around the neighborhood, going door-to-door so quick, you couldn't even see where they were. I was escorting the officers to the back, to the garage, camper, what have you [unintelligible] came back around, out my back door, I seen them searching by the fences, their flashlights [up by] the front gate -- they tackled me because they had found her," he said.1
"When I [unintelligible] those damn dogs, then I knew. They found her in the northeast corner of our front yard near the fence line," he said. Dunbar was then taken to the police department. He sat in the interrogation room for hours and did not know what was going on. Then Dunbar flashes back to the scene and explains the tarp. He said officers took a tarp from the back of his truck, "and they put that tarp over that area until the coroner got here and they could remove her."
Later Dunbar explains the "rehoming" attempt. "I told her I did not want these dogs here," he said. "I got a two-and-a-half year old." Dunbar and Jaramillo took the two pit bulls over to an apartment. "The guy called up an hour and a half later and said, 'You need to come get these dogs,'" Dunbar said. "We went and picked up the dogs. An hour after we picked up the dogs, that man's apartment started on fire, on 13th and Western. These are dogs from hell dude," Dunbar said.
Actually the dogs were man-made, selectively bred for nearly two centuries for explosive aggression and to fight to the death in a pit.
09/26/16: Child Killed By Pit Bulls
Topeka Police found Piper Dunbar, 2-years old, dead underneath a tarp in her front yard. She had been mauled to death by two pit bulls. Her father, Donald (Donnie) Dunbar, told WIBW the two had fallen asleep earlier that evening. Piper slipped out of the house without his knowing. The two pit bulls belong to Margaret Jaramillo, a family friend who had been temporarily staying with Dunbar, a single father, and helping out with Piper's care. Her dogs ended up killing his child.
Jaramillo said she was "running errands" when the deadly attack occurred and called 911 as soon as she realized Piper was missing. Jaramillo said her two pit bulls were in the backyard of the home and does not know how they wound up in the front yard where Piper was. Police responded to the 911 call at 814 SE Carnahan Avenue at about 8 pm Saturday evening. It did not take police long to discover the little girl dead under a tarp, where she died alone in the dark and rain.2
City Repealed Ban
In 2010, to the delight of pit bull owners and breeders, the City of Topeka repealed their longstanding pit bull ban. The ban had been in place since the early 1980s, when pit bulls first began to capture national headlines for horrific maulings and fatalities across the country. Now Topeka is just like any other unregulated part of the country. However, the tri-state region of Kansas, Iowa and Missouri still maintains the highest level of breed-specific laws in the country.
09/25/16: Child Found Dead
Topeka, KS - A child who was initially reported missing Saturday night was found dead in the yard of her home after police arrived. Topeka Police Lt. Bryan Wheeles said a 2-year old girl was reported missing about 8 pm in the 800 block of SW Carnahan Avenue. Upon arrival at the residence, police initiated a search and found the little girl deceased in the fenced-in yard. Investigators determined dogs attacked her. Animal control seized two dogs at the scene.
“The child and animals were localized within the fenced yard area of the involved residence." - Topeka Police Lt. Bryan Wheeles, Sunday news release
The involved parties were taken to the Topeka Law Enforcement Center to be interviewed. The case will be forwarded to the Shawnee County District Attorney’s Office for review after the investigation, Wheeles states. Police did not release dog ownership information or the breed(s) of dogs involved. The last fatal dog attack in Shawnee County occurred in 2012, when 2-year old Savannah Edwards was killed by a "rescue" pit bull while visiting the dog owner's home.
Search-and-Rescue Deaths
At least two other dog mauling deaths of children first began as a missing child search-and-rescue effort. In 2012, 4-year old Kylar Johnson slipped away from his father in Victoria County, Texas. He was discovered dead 14 hours later, killed by a chained pit bull nearly a half-mile away. That same year in Donalsonville, Georgia, law enforcement agencies went door-to-door searching for Bryton Cason, 4-years old. They discovered him dead three hours later in his own yard, killed by a dog.
2Sunset was at 7:12 pm in Topeka and by the time police arrived (and potentially earlier) there were thundershowers.
Related articles:
12/16/12: 2012 Dog Bite Fatality: Rescue Pit Bull Kills 2-Year Old Girl; Nearby Restrictions...
09/22/16: Tri-State Midwestern Map of Breed-Specific Laws
I can only believe it is another pit bull attack when there is this much obfuscation involved in not naming the breed or showing a photo.
So sad.
WIBW has the story with an interview with the father. They were pit bulls.
When sociopaths and their friends in the media engaged in a marketing campaign and created a cult of Pit Bull, the most astonishing thing is that people are actually willing to sacrifice their own children to worship the cult.
What mother or father would allow a fighting breed to come anywhere near their home with children?
Of course when shelters, breeders, and media intentionally lie and deny the fighting & violence characteristics of the pit bull breeds, they commit consumer fraud and get people killed.
Shelters need to be held accountable. This needs to stop. And the shelters should not be off the hook for putting faulty animals out into the public.
Attention please! Calling all personal injury lawyers! We need you to hold the shelters and rescues accountable.
So isn't this highly suspicious? I mean, when you can't find your kid don't you check all over the house and garden first? Shouldn't the parents have seen the kid in the yard before they reported her missing?
Seems the parents were split up. The dad fell asleep with the baby. The babysitter was out. She owned the two dogs. Her name is Margaret Jaramillo. She has "no idea how the dogs…" You know the rest.
The clan has had a lengthy history of fighting with the local and county governments. Inspection problems, tax issues, very aggressive.
In short, they're classic examples of dysfunctional pit bull owners.
The shelters are certainly to blame for much of this, but keep in mind that MOST of the pit bulls in households right now cam from BREEDERS (including dog fighters who sell on the side.)
The breeders took advantage of the marketing and protection lobby that pit bull advocacy brought them, and their numbers skyrocketed to take advantage of the created fad. Pit bull breeders are selling massive numbers of these dogs through facebook, craigslist, the endless online breeder websites, classified ads, on street corners!
For example, the woman in Colorado who was recently killed by her pit bulls. Both came from a breeder. The child in Maine? A pit bull breeder family.
Most pit bulls are purchased from breeders, and remember that the cast offs that end up in the shelters? They ALL originated from breeders.
Breeders are among the least regulated but most problematic industries in the country, thanks to their truly rabid lobbying.
I am beginning to understand where the opposition to BSL originates.
Wow. I just watched the whole 10-minute interview with the father. He is obviously feeling deeply and genuinely distressed, but all the same he opens his 10-minute speech first and foremost with defense of pit bulls. A couple minutes in, he says he doesn't even judge the two pit bulls that killed his daughter.
The rest of the interview is a curious mix of what seem like this man's own genuine thoughts and feelings interspersed here and there with a sudden cliche that cant possibly be his own genuine invention, but is what he's been taught he should say and feel. Eg: "Let's not mourn tonight, but rather celebrate her life." Eg, he'd like to drag the owner of the pit bulls down the street in a cage, but again says no 'beautiful' animal like a pit bull should be caged — the 'it's all on the owner, never on the pit bull' cliche.
Who taught him these things? Dr Phil for one, who is a child advocate but refuses to address the epidemic of pit bull type dogs mauling and killing children. Much more of course the entire pit bull propaganda machine that has professional tobacco lobbyists working day and night for them, as well as an obsessed New York literary agent; the entire range of corrupted 'animal welfare' and 'humane' societies whose only goal nowadays is to pimp for pit bulls even as those torture 40,000 normal animals to death yearly; the many academics who are now whoring to the pit bull lobby's money; the whole hip-hop / rap music scene that says anyone who wants to be cool has to own and pimp for pit bulls; Hollywood stars like Bullock, Bacon, Theron (to say nothing of brown-noser DeGeneris, who gives these vanity-ridden actors a platform).
It looks to me like this man genuinely loved his daughter and did his best for her, but that he was unable to resist the normative social pressure from both the propaganda machine and his peers. It's intolerable that these affluent people living in their cushy worlds, members of the 1%, are free to victimize people like this man — and more yet children like his daughter. They are establishing fashion norms that serve their own vanity, knowing all the while that they are complicit in the killing this man's daughter and tens of other children every year.
It really is time for the law to provide strong normative counter-pressure by banning the entire class of pit bull type dogs (including all their mixes and derivatives) and strictly enforcing those bans.
Why am I not surprised a shelter pit killed this sweet innocent child? Those places need to be charged and held accountable for the vicious dogs they're selling. I bet they listed it as being harmless.
Im sorry that this happened this makes me upset. An feel bad for her dad. Idk what i would so if my child was found dead..i dont have kids im 15 but im just saying when i get older… but anyways this is really upsetting.. there was a little girl that went missing when she got off the bus
Did you see the comments on this thread? http://www.wibwnewsnow.com/2-year-old-found-dead-southeast-topeka/
It might be good to get screenshots of the comments made by the man claiming to be Margaret's son (not sure I have the technology to do so at the moment or if they would even post here). He seems to have a lot of knowledge of the dogs, Too Short (the male who was "blue and white") and the female he didn't trust who was red. He said she was younger than the male and came from an abusive home; they hadn't had her long. He literally calls her questionable and says he would put his money on her being the killer, but insists Too Short was a "sweat" dog who played with his child all summer without incident.
He also spouts additional ignorance about pits. Horribly sad.
Sorry but this man KNEW these dogs were vicious. They tried to unload these dogs on someone who told them to pick the dogs back up in an hour. AGGRESSIVE.
And all the father wants to do, it seems, is talk about beautiful FIGHTING dogs.
He talked more about the fighting breeds than the child.