The Vicious Attack Occurred in December in Riverside County
Angela Johnson, 54, died after a violent pit bull mauling in Anza, California.
Mauling Victim Dies
UPDATE 02/18/19: A woman severely mauled by three pit bulls in December has passed away, according to announcements on Facebook by her family members. Angela Johnson, 54-years old, died on February 9, nearly two months after the vicious dog attack. On December 15, as Johnson was hanging laundry in the yard of her rural Anza home, three loose pit bulls violently attacked her. She was airlifted to a trauma center. Shortly thereafter, she was placed on life support.
Riverside County Animal Services confiscated the dogs, described as “pit bulls or pit bull mixes,” and released identification images of them. The agency quickly sought a destruction order for the dogs and all three were euthanized on January 7. The owner of the pit bulls, Jesse Leon Miranda, 61, of Anza, was arrested on an outstanding felony warrant and booked into the Cois Byrd Detention Center following the attack. No additional arrests or citations have been announced.
12/19/18: Mauling Victim on Life Support
Anza, CA - A woman is on life support after a vicious attack by three pit bulls. The attack occurred Saturday in Anza, a rural community in Riverside County about 45 miles south of Palm Springs. According to a GoFundMe page created by her son, Tim Platt, Angela (Platt) Johnson remains on life support. "The dogs basically ate my mom alive, ripping out a main artery in her throat, causing a severe stroke to the left side of her brain, leaving her half brain dead," Platt states on the page.1
Platt now has to make the difficult decision of whether or not to leave his severely injured mother on life support or to allow doctors to remove her from the machines, reports Trevor Montgomery of the Riverside County News Source. Photographs on the GoFundMe page show Johnson heavily bandaged and connected to the machines that are keeping her alive. Family members are now in disagreement over how best to proceed and a competing GoFundMe page has been created.
Case Background
On December 15, a woman was savagely attacked by three pit bulls while hanging laundry in her yard in the rural community of Anza. The attack occurred in the 55000 block of Mitchell Road about 9:40 am, Riverside County Fire Department said. She suffered severe bite injuries and was airlifted to a trauma center. "All three [dogs] were pit bulls or pit bull mixes and there is a known owner," John Welsh, a spokesman for Riverside County Department of Animal Services said.
Due to the severity of the attack, Welsh said that Riverside County Animal Services will seek a destruction order. "This is another preventable attack on an innocent person and one we find very upsetting," Director Robert Miller said in a statement. "It's imperative that owners of these types of dogs do everything in their power to prevent such horrific attacks." Miller urged owners of dogs with "high prey drives" to secure their yards to protect neighboring people and their pets.
Deputies arrested the dogs' owner on an outstanding felony warrant for vehicle theft and possession of stolen property, reports Riverside County News Source. "Jail records indicate Jesse Leon Miranda, 61, of Anza, was subsequently booked into Cois Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta for his warrant. He remains in custody in lieu of $20,000 bail, and is scheduled to be seen at Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta, Dec. 19," News Source reported on December 15.
Angela Johnson, 54-years old, remained hospitalized until she passed away on February 9.
Three pit bulls were confiscated after the vicious attack in Southwest Riverside County.
View the DogsBite.org Google Map: California Fatal Pit Bull Maulings.
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06/26/17: 2017 Dog Bite Fatality: Woman Brain Dead After Pit Bull Mauling Near Bozeman
09/10/15: 2015 Dog Bite Fatality: Pit Bulls Kill Man, Injure Woman in North Shore, California
10/15/14: 2014 Dog Bite Fatality: Neighbor's Pack of Pit Bulls Kill Modesto Man, Injure...
Have you seen my update? The Dr’s want to pull the plug, as the victim is brain dead.
https://riversidecountynewssource.org/2018/12/19/son-describes-agony-after-drs-ask-to-pull-plug-on-critically-injured-anza-mauling-victim/
By the way, your article is very well written. Easy to read and very professional. I’m impressed.
-TM
When are the pity party people going to start their campaign to save these maulers? I find it such a dichotomy how the photos made public of these three dogs look sad, guilty, and lonely, while one is covered in human blood and we know what they did.
Awwww, look at the poor sad widdle pibble wibbles. Please rescue them because they want to go home. They just want to be lo-o-oved.
That is, before they, ahem, lick you to death.
If she dies the owner of the dogs should be charged with manslaughter. There is no excuse for this level of negligence with a vicious animal.
Colleen, I am never going to understand this logic. We are not talking about a bite here. How is it that people can own highly potentially dangerous animals, oops they get loose, and they tear another being apart, and the owner faces little to no consequences?!?!? People have been scalped, eviscerated, lost limb and life, defaced, degloved, have had large blood vessels ripped out of their bodies, tracheas ripped out, and more! These dogs (and some other breeds) are inherently dangerous and the owners face little consequences for these extreme injuries.
I am glad you post the photos of the dogs as well as the victims. These pictures look like a thousand others of pits being offered at shelters all across the country. These animals appear calm, even friendly.
But this is exactly what you can expect with breeds designed to go from zero to rampage and back again in a matter of moments. It hits home that you cannot judge which ones are going to turn just by looking at them. You just cannot know, and that’s what makes them such a risk.
It’s getting very strange. I live in L.A., in an upscale neighborhood, but we are seeing them here now. Two were running loose in the neighborhood, apparently stalking a woman walking her dog. I picked her up and
called the police,who came racing up. Unable to find the dogs, but police went on and on about how dangerous they are.
That’s when I found this website. Recently, a neighbor with his walked by…I stayed in my car and said softly, “I hate those dogs….” Neighbor heard me and really yelled. Said I was a terrible person… ?
It’s the same in my neighborhood. I’m not in L.A., but in an upper middle class neighborhood on the east coast, and I see more and more of these landsharks. And it’s not just hipsters who think they’re doing some virtuous act by adopting a “poor misunderstood pibble”. These are older, retirement age folks walking dogs that can destroy them with little effort. I keep thinking it’s only a matter of time before one of those rescue dogs become a rescue call.
If you cannot defend yourself from a dog, then don’t adopt it. You wouldn’t adopt a bear would you? If your 50 or small and cannot outfight it, don’t get something too strong or big for you to handle. Adopt a poodle instead and then the animal organizations destroy the vicious mongrels like they should of in the first place.