Please donate to support our work

DogsBite.org is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt public charity organization. Learn more »

48 thoughts on “2019 Dog Bite Fatality: Man Found Dead, Believed to be Killed by a Pack of Dogs in the Highway Park Community

Please review our comment policy.

  1. Again? Another middle aged man pulled down by roaming dogs? If this were ANYTHING else, ANY other animal, it would create panic. But since it’s “just” dogs (and very possibly you-know-what kind of dogs), it will probably just drift away in the media and the public’s memory. A man lost his life, the second 40-something year old man in just days, and closely following a woman of similar age being pulled down by loose dogs in a parking lot. These people died alone, gruesomely and needlessly. It should be a very big deal.

    Notice that the news story warns people to call in if they see a dog or dogs acting aggressively. What they must not realize is that depending on the breed, dogs which have the potential and desire to kill may not look agitated or act aggressively until the very moment they attack.

    And why waste time attempting to trap the pack of dogs they spotted? It just gives owners more time to “tamper with evidence” as in the recent Brian Butler case, or to whisk the dogs off to some unsuspecting relative or new owners to avoid them being confiscated. Why not just SHOOT this pack of dogs instead of trying to take them in alive? My mind in these situations keeps going back to the case of Bethany Stephens when she was killed by her two pit bulls which then lingered around her body. If I remember correctly, law enforcement spent a considerable amount of time trying to “catch” her dogs instead of just dispatching them immediately. Is it fear of backlash in case they’re wrong? I don’t remember dogs having the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, and in that case they were seen actually eating her body but still weren’t shot.

    I’d be more concerned about a loose pack of dogs with the propensity to kill than about public perception, and I hope that my own local law enforcement would just take them down immediately!

    I know they want to do testing on the dogs, but it seems like the inherint danger to the public would be more pressing. And we all know these dogs Don’t have rabies. They never do, do they? Everyone wants to think they might, because the other possibility is unthinkable… that sometimes dogs just kill people for no reason.

    • Any time police shoot a dog for any reason, the Internet goes berserk, generating tons of sympathetic media coverage for the dog owner. There’s even been an agit-prop documentary put out on the subject.

      In the latest case, St. Louis police were ordered to pay $750,000 in damages after shooting a woman’s pit bull during a raid. (Look it up.) While I agree unpaid utility bills don’t require a SWAT team, we all know why this case is generating so much outrage–it’s because a (likely attacking) pit bull was killed.

      It is no wonder law enforcement may be very hesitant to use lethal force under any circumstances with dogs.

      • This all comes down to spay & neuter laws !! MANDATORY SPAY NEUTER LAWS. If people took this seriously; we would not have packs of stray dogs roaming our streets. We would not have dirtbags breeding aggressive dogs & selling them on Craigslist, flea markets & parking lots. Until Our government steps in & mandates spay/neuter of ALL Dogs, these horror stories will continue.

        • If ALL dogs are spayed/neutered by law…there wouldn’t be any more dogs, period. Is that what you’re advocating, or are you for some sort of breeding-by-license-only situation, or…?

      • If cities and counties are worried about lawsuits generated from pit bulls why not pass a ban on them as numerous cities have done including DENVER CO?

    • Presumably they don’t want to just go out and shoot any roaming dogs they find in case it isn’t the dangerous pack in question?

    • Why doesn’t Any Town, USA, local law agencies “set up traps” routinely, before tens of thousands of reconstructive surgeries from severe dog maulings happen annually? Because they don’t want to. Why? Because they en-masse, answer to, and enable the dog people who, en-masse, let their pedestrian-aggressive dogs out to terrorize pedestrians. It would go against their obvious objective if they enforced dog control laws.

      • What’s the point of
        choosing to support dog fighters intentional breeding for deadly unprovoked neutral ground suicidal aggression, then
        acquiring and owning bully dogs if you can’t let them roam and terrorize the neighborhood?

  2. Sellis, I almost skipped reading this “long” post until I saw that it was you who wrote it. Thank you for your intelligent and well-spoken comments on these horrendous deaths. You always seem to say what needs to be said, in a way that’s interesting to read.

    I agree completely, by the way. If it had been a bear or alligator it would already have been dispatched and the public could relax knowing that their neighborhood was safe.

  3. I fully agree that this pack needs to eliminated as soon as possible, and using deadly force is a great idea. However, these dogs may be roaming over a large area and not terribly easy to find.

    Sadly, human beings create this scenario by turning unwanted dogs loose with no consideration of the damage they will do. If the dogs have no source of food, humans make good eating.

    • Packs of roaming aggressive dogs are seldom homeless. Many people still maintain the habit of letting their pet dogs roam. I don’t know why. It’s dangerous for the dogs as well as for humans. It’s a lousy way to show that you love and care for a pet, but that’s what they do. I know several people that just open their door to let their pits out for a run. No fence. They’re usually the first ones to profess their love for their innocent wiggle butt, while defending them and blaming the victim, whether that victim is someone else’s pet, livestock, or child. In this county we do have leash laws, but the whole idea of calling AC is a farce. The laws aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

      • 1. True.
        2. True.
        3a. Because the local police forcibly enable people who let aggressive dogs run loose.
        3b. Because local prosecutors forcibly enable people who let aggressive dogs run loose.

        In Prescott, the name of the game is Criminalize the Victim Pedestrian. The local System willfully maliciously makes the victim the criminal, and makes the criminal the victim. If you do not want jail and also have felony prison charges against you for tenth of a second self defense against ambush dog charge attack, stay away from Prescott!

  4. My brother-in-law recently had a 12 year old cousin who was horrifically mauled by a pack of 6 pit bull “mix” dogs while riding his bike in Mississippi. He barely survived. The only reason he isn’t featured on this website is because a man and teen which were driving past saw what was happening and drove the dogs away with lumber and hammers they had in their vehicle. All 6 dogs were caught and euthanized, and the owner was never named or charged because there is no leash law there. I never heard much more about the dogs and never saw a photo, but I did hear a pit bull defender say that they were definitely NOT pit bulls, but “just mixes.” This was an actual relative of the boy, quick to defend the honor of a dog breed when his nephew had just been brutalized and was in an induced coma due to the trauma of his injuries. Sickening!

    But all that to say, here we are in a civilized country and roving packs of dogs are killing and maiming with frequency, and yet very little is heard about it. Little boys on bikes, old women going for a walk, and in just a few days’ time two men in their 40s. Why isn’t this something which garners the attention it deserves?

    I’m so sad for the family of Mr. Olds Jr. This simply should not be.

    • Tens of thousands of reconstructive surgeries in the USA from severe dog maulings every year. The greatest effort on the part of local law is to sweep this under the rug, and to jail the victims who refuse, in two tenths of a second, to become a medical casualty of local laws’ efforts. Local law enforcement is the sole source of blame for dog people who know that they can let their pedestrian-aggressive dogs out to terrorize pedestrians with impunity. Nothing will change until local law organizations are held accountable for their wilful malicious actions, in State Court or better, Federal Court.

      • As soon as all of my repeated at large German/Australian shepherd ambush dog attack self defense cases are successfully adjudicated, I will offer complete transcripts to anyone who may be interested. My one verbal self defense case: I prevailed when The State argued that I do not have the right to self defense of my ankles against immediate threat of small dog charge, and I was jailed and criminally tried for verbally saying that I do. The judge agreed with me, and he disagreed with The State and the self-documented maliciously biased 13 year police sergeant and the obviously perjurious repeat at large dog owner. Richard Buffalins’ ankles are not exempted from self defense against immediate small dog charge attack, per Prescott Court Ruling May 8, 2019.
        Before that date, in Prescott, verbally informing repeat at large dog owners that below the knee/small dog attack charge was not exempted from Arizona self defense law was a jailable and chargeable criminal offense. Not anymore, due to the notorious “Buffalins’ Ankles” law case trial and ruling. Pedestrians now have been adjudicated to have the right to verbally inform at large dog offenders that they, in an immediate need basis, have the legal right to forcibly Prevent injury to an important part of the body, located below the knee, that is needed for standing and walking.
        The State requested jail time for me, but, against everybody’s stern, dire warnings, I went to criminal trial representing myself. I cross examined the perjurious at large dog owner and the 13 year police sergeant who, in his report, willfully falsely maliciously depicted me as a disorderly person. The State argued that I was a verbal threat to the residents of the neighborhood. In the past two months since this landmark court ruling, word has spread throughout the Prescott At Large Dog Owner-Police-Prosecutor Complex that all it takes is one pedestrian who refuses to be a victim, to radially alter the outcome of the ambush dog attack charge equation. Pedestrians of America have the right to say, and do, “No!” to ambush dog attack.

        • Can your case be used as legal precedent in another Arizona jurisdiction? Like my city, Tucson?

          • Probably not. If the at large dog owner makes a statement that the dog is friendly, the police and prosecutor have an excuse to take the self defense case to trial. Dogs that are friendly when in eyeshot of the owner can turn to ambush attackers when the owner is out of eyeshot, when a pedestrian walks by the ungated property. Dog owners do not comprehend that if they are not present when the dog is left unattended, that the dog can have a tendency to charge attack passerby when pedestrian walks past the un-gated property. Dogs that are old or infirm can still be capable of short burst near-full speed ambush charge. Legal people know this, but because the owner stated that the dog was geriatric/arthritic/friendly, the pedestrian will be stuffed, cuffed, incarcerated and brought to trial. Many local jurisdictions in this country tacitly accept hospitalization statistics, but forceably refuse to accept self defense statistics. Police officers do not walk by ungated property that contains a loose dog with the owner not present, they drive by in their motor vehicles. Pedestrians are almost always either the medical victim or the legal victim when dogs ambush charge attack. There are millions of at large dog owners, and only precious few adequately defended pedestrians. The larger group is defended by local law. The smaller group is criminalized by local law.

  5. Unbelievable. This is 3rd world garbage.
    In my neck if the woods, roaming dogs don’t exist. People don’t intentionally just let their dogs loose into the world, and if they do, they know the possible consequences. Aggressive roaming dogs are dealt with swiftly and with prejudice.
    The fact that 3 adults have been killed recently by roaming dogs is mind boggling to me. These poor people being slaughtered by “pets” is disgusting. When will the laws finally hold people liable for being terrible dog owners? This is negligent manslaughter at the very least. If I left my firearm laying in the street, and someone found it and were injured or killed, I would ABSOLUTELY be held criminally liable. If I let my aggressive dogs out to roam and they kill someone, I’d probably be just fine.
    These are human lives we’re talking here. They mattered to someone, and they matter to me.

    Rest in peace, Mr. Olds. I hope they do right by you and your family in this horrific situation.

    • Hi, there. I actually live in this town (Lake Placid, FL), and though I tentatively agree that the whole State is guilty of some “3rd world garbage” (the thinking is pretty backwards), Lake Placid is not actually a wooded area or rural setting where anyone besides the witness on the Sheriff’s FB page has ever seen roaming packs of dogs. Amidst this horrible event, there are bigger issues than specific dog breeds at work, which make this crime unsolved in many people’s eyes. The murder rate in 2019 in this tiny town has increased already by 25%, and the victims were not white. The “Highlands Park” area is not a park, it is generally known as “the ghetto” or “the black part of town”, which might be why people here aren’t clamoring for real answers of any kind. It’s just the atmosphere here. I don’t really have an opinion about what kind of dogs attacked Mr. Olds, but I don’t think that we have enough evidence for anything conclusive, and probably never will. It’s sad to say. I wholeheartedly agree that animal control is a major issue (I have NEVER seen an animal control truck in Highlands County during the time I have lived here—that’s a problem). I am aware of a concerned mother calling animal control because they were afraid for their daughter who was very young, and their neighbor did have a badly behaved pit bull (the neighbor was equally badly behaved, which is a “why do bad people get to raise any breed”? question)—the result was that animal control left after smelling cooking meth in the household and telling her that the Sheriff would handle the dog and drugs…unfortunately this didn’t come to fruition. I guess my rambling point is: Highlands County, FL has some major ‘buck-passing’ and non-patrolling problems that could lead to an incident like this. Reporting is not happening, either. I feel terrible for Mr. Olds’ family and friends, and the violent nature of what happened should really be resounding more, but honestly, Lake Placid forgot it as soon as it happened. We need a patrolling animal control unit. People need to be responsible and follow leash laws or lose their animals. If people see aggressive animals, they should call about it, and document the response they get. Dogs can’t be more accountable, only we can. Thanks for those of you who actually advocated for the victim here.

  6. On May 26 a young man was killed by a shark in Hawaii. It was covered across national, local and foreign news outlets. Equally horrifying are the dog mauling deaths and injuries in the US. I’m wondering when they will merit this widespread coverage. There have been so many recently that I have lost count for 2019. I hope the outrage will become overwhelming and communities in this country will stand up and say No More to fans of pit bulls and their mixes or at least hold owners to strict liability and criminal liability for these crimes committed against innocent people by pit bull type dogs which prove themselves on a daily basis.

  7. I just don’t get why anyone would want a breed of dog that has the potential to do this when it gets loose and/or packs up. I cannot wrap my head around taking on this amount of liability. I hate that people are being injured and killed in the most slow, excruciatingly painful way. What a pit bull does is torture. It truly is extreme torture.

    For anyone who has not suffered a significant dog bite (yes even just one), they are excruciatingly painful, tissue crushing injuries. Extremely painful the moment they happen and similar to burns, these crush injuries have severe, sustaining pain in the seconds and hours just after.

    • That’s easy to answer. Some people love the idea of acting “tough” and “gangsta” and enjoy the idea that having a pitbull makes them appear that way. In my state, North Carolina, it takes an awful lot for dog owners of these monsters to ever become responsible, legally, for the damage they cause.

      • Yep. Today, driving to work, I got stuck behind a vehicle that was absolutely covered in bumper stickers. Nearly all of them were some kind of profanity (A huge sticker across the back window said “***hole”), along with 3rd-grade level references to boobs and farting.

        Well, among all of this lovely display were several pro- pit bull and anti-BSL stickers. (Including, hilariously, “Ban Stupid People Not Dogs!” Be careful what you wish for, buddy.) What do you want to bet THIS fine individual is a responsible pit bull owner?

  8. Interestingly everyone says the dogs are pits but CNN says authorities didn’t say what breed they are! Poor
    Mr. Olds. He must have been terrified.

    • Quote: “If there were previous incidents with these dogs, seems unlikely police would ever release photos of them….” I agree. Local Law is very strongly self-motivated to not release information that provides evidence of the un-addressed problem that is the scourge of Middle America.
      “…unlikely would ever…” I probably will never live to see the day that this is generally reversed. Local Law power is too entrenched for any change, in the interest of justice, for this to ever occur.

  9. No matter how many of these attacks happen delusional pit owners just can’t get it through their block heads that THEIR dog is not different or special, it’s the same ticking bomb as the one that just went off.

    • Well, when we have the animal rescue movement pumping their blockheads full of nonsense, of course maulings are going to happen. It’s only a matter of time.

      Which leads me to this question: Where’s the people rescue movement?

      • Quote: “Which leads me to this question: Where’s the people rescue movement?”

        No such organization in Prescott, so for me, for now, it is an individualized movement. My concrete, emergency actions in this specific area have not gone unnoticed by the repeat at large dog owners and the police and prosecutors who forcibly enable the perpetuation of the source of the problem.

        • You have an ally down in Pima County. And I think that several of my neighbors would also be on your side.

          We have had a loose pit bull problem for YEARS. And, when any of us call the Pima Animal “Care” Center to request that they enforce the leash law, they seldom show up. That’s why I put the c-word in quotes.

  10. Fellow North Carolinian here. I can vouch for that. I am forever in a never ending battle to get the rights to my own property back from a pack of pitbulls, owned by a woman who lets them run every day. As sure as the sun rises each morning, there will be between 3 and 5 large, aggressive pitbulls terrorizing us. Animal control has picked them up in the past, but they return the dogs directly to their owner instead of taking them to their facility and forcing the owner to pay a fee to get them back because “she’s really facing hard times and can’t afford the fines” according to the AC supervisor. So, they essentially enable this woman while displaying blatant disregard for my family’s safety and our rights to the property we own.

    • You do have rights to defend yourself, on an immediate need basis. It has to be immediate threat. Problem: If you do, you can be arrested, jailed, prosecuted and tried, and then have to wait months for the time for a judge to hear you say that you had immediate need to defend yourself against an immediate threat. In Prescott, the police and local prosecutors are blatantly and forcefully on the side of known, repeated at large dog owners. Firstly, reports of threatening at large dogs are swept under the rug and nothing ever gets done, and secondly, the pedestrian who uses the last few tenths of a second to avoid major trauma surgery is jailed, charged, and tried for exercising the ability to fall back on state self defense law. Dog owners, police and prosecutors expect the pedestrian to wait the last four tenths of a second, and do nothing but go to surgery for severe mauling. After 8,000 pedestrian miles in the supposedly nice city of Prescott, dog owners are pressuring the police, who are in turn pressuring prosecutors, who are in turn pressuring courts to rid themselves of one pedestrian, who, twice, in 8,000 miles, in the last three tenths of a second, physically and forcefully says and does a loud and resounding “No!” to severe dog attack mauling. Step out your door into your own property, and if you dare, onto the sidewalk, and you have only two choices: Hospital or jail. That is how it is in Prescott with at large dog owners and police and prosecutors refusing to accept pedestrians who refuse traumatic injury.

      • Well, as a newly retired couple, we were entertaining the thought of moving to Arizona or New Mexico ( we live in Florida and are just sick of the humidity and hurricanes).
        Perhaps we should just move to Las Vegas and spend our retirement years gambling instead 😂😂😂😂
        Have yet to run into a SHITBULL inside a casino 😁

    • Sounds like a good time to invest in a firearm and self defense insurance. It costs around $18 a month and will cover if you get taken to court for defending yourself.

      • Debbie, I completely agree with you. And if her dogs injure or kill someone, guess who is off the hook for the medical bills? Getting money out of her would be like trying to get blood out of a rock, so I guess she has nothing to lose.

  11. Other than a gun, the only tool I can picture that could stop a bully dog attack might be a chainsaw and even then not if a surprise attack from behind.

    A battery powered lightweight chainsaw could be kept handy while working in the yard or walking to the car.

    • I have given your post a lot of thought for the past 24 hours, thinking at length about how to reply. People have no idea just how defenseless they are if ambush charge attacked by a dog. The dog can run significantly faster than any victim pedestrian. Also, an item that is not much concretely correctly pre-envisioned: A dog can, much faster, target and evade the human victims’ arms, hands, feet, much faster than the the person can move, to evade or counter-attack. Hence such futile advice from dangerous animal protagonists and/or the uninformed: “Punch/kick it on the nose!”. Well, the dog can and will move its head much, much faster than the victim can move his arm/hand/leg/foot, and deliver an injury to the ankle/wrist faster than the victim can see it happening. Adequately defended persons end up being very suprisedly severely injured, because they let the attacker get way too close before taking sufficient action. “There was no time!”, “It happened lightning fast!” “I thought it was still far enough away!” are the common statements made by ambush attack survivors. If the dog is charging at 30 feet per second, and it takes X amount of seconds to deploy your self defense, please do the math and see how far away the attack vector is before you have to reach for your self defense, and then deploy your self defense. The quantitative distance, measured in feet, is a shock to police, dog owners and prosecutors. Such persons expect the victim to wait one three-hundredth of the distance that is needed to have time to actually do the self-defense. One inch away, one foot away, and three feet away are very insufficient time. To all attack dog apologists: Significantly larger distances are needed, to provide minimal required time, at 30 feet per second attack. Three feet is way, way, way too close! Forget about moving limbs faster than the dog can adjust in a blink of an eye, and succeed in delivering a severe mauling!

  12. There is a long list of groups that oppose BSL.

    If bully people are going to present that info, they should include all the groups that oppose BSL.

    The first and most important group, that really really hates BSL, is the
    DOG FIGHT loving lobby, which includes the dogfighters themselves.

    Dogfighters know that they must have suicidal deadly-on-neutral ground, game insane dogs to continue their “sport.”

    Those who resist BSL are on the same side as the dogmen.

  13. European BSL is a good start, but American BSL is lacking, one reason is because only one genre of dangerous canines is listed in American BSL, but European countries have more than a few breeds listed in their current laws that regulate dangerous dogs. Any breed that will ambush charge attack a pedestrian from its property when a pedestrian walks by, when the owner is not in view of the dog, and is capable of injuring the pedestrians ankles (body parts needed for standing and walking, as dog owners and local law apparently do not know) should be subject to federal regulation. Americas’ residential streets are teeming with more than a few breeds of dogs that immediately threaten pedestrians, every day, every hour, every minute, every second. Sweep the dangerous dogs off the streets, and enact and enforce state law to keep them off the streets, now!

  14. July 23: In today’s news: Well-trained dangerous animal attacked a human, the human shot and killed the well trained animal in self defense. All other details are beyond tertiary and quaternary. All that the quintenary details do is make the incident “news-worthy”, in the eyes of whomever decides which dangerous animal incidents make the news.

  15. Dogs behind a white picket fence, that tempestuously alert when someone walking a dog walks past: Safe? Not so fast. Prescott, today, I am walking my 140 daily blocks in what appears to be a nice, single family residential neighborhood, I hear the usual canine commotion when a young child walking her beagle passes by 1622 Cederwood Drive. One of two large, white dogs that live there is halfway through a hole in the fence that he made by pushing one picket out. I phoned animal control to inform them of the perimeter rupture. “Animal control is not on duty on Sunday morning, I am politely informed”. Good thing that they picked a fine time to schedule for such.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *