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53 thoughts on “2019 Dog Bite Fatality: Man Mauled to Death by Pack of Dogs in Southwest Memphis

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    • That article needs a little translation. Pointer/Boxer mix=pit bull. Lab mix= pit bull. Utterly ridiculous. So I guess they’ve been trained to ONLY attack aliens, right? Right!

      On the topic of this most recent pack death, it is a shame that people are held hostage by roaming aggressive dogs and nothing is done… even up to the point that a man loses his life. But, I guarantee that if one of those dogs had been shot or poisoned, animal control would have been all over the situation the first time they were called. Unfortunately it wouldn’t be to impound the loose dogs, but to arrest a human and charge them with cruelty. It just shows how our values have skewed so far toward animal rights that humans no longer have the right to feel safe in their own neighborhood. Memphis has enough problems without adding dangerous dogs to the list. I’m a Tennessee resident. And yes, Tennessee allows licensed carry of firearms. But I doubt this man could have stopped all 8 dogs with one gun once they were started. And it happens so quickly and so silently that defending oneself is not always a possibility. So sad for the family of Mr. Woods.

        • Five shot revolver is next to useless. Same with six shot, or seven. It is not year 1898 anymore. 8 shot 1911 is out of date many decades ago, too. 1983 has come and gone. Question: Dog packs? Answer: 15 round Glock. The sooner pedestrians actively live in the correct solution, the sooner the problem will be extinguished. Dog owners and local law have far worse than zero to offer to solve this problem.

          • A 5-shot revolver is relatively light and easy to carry. With dogs, one shot is usually all that’s necessary because the noise of the shot and yelps of the dogs that are hit — if they aren’t killed immediately — frighten the others and they disperse. By the time they return, you will have had time to reach safety. Of course, if you’re really worried you may have to shoot more than 5 times, carry a few extra bullets. A 15-round Glock is too large, heavy and cumbersome to carry in one’s pocket.

        • Carry whatever you shoot the best and whatever you will actually carry. The 5 shot S&W J frame in your pocket is more useful than the 17 round Glock you left at home because it is uncomfortable.

          If you can shoot a semi auto well and will carry it, they are great. However I would never call any revolver “useless”. See how the dogs broke off the attack once they heard a car horn? What do you think the crack of .357 Magnum or .38+P is going to do to their sensitive doggy hearing?

          If you can handle the recoil and your gun is rated for it I recommend stepping up to .38 Special +P to ensure the hollowpoints actually open. Remington makes a .38+P hollowpoint designed for snub nosed guns. It also has lower muzzle flash so you are not blinded if you have to use it in the dark.

          • Dr Duke has some great gun advice there! Very sensible! I second the .38+P, it can make a real difference in stopping power.

          • I have a S&W .38 special +P.

            I am going to agree with you on this one. The reason why my higher capacity Glocks and M&P stay home, is because I am a hopelessly tiny little lady, much smaller than the dogs that run my property. I can’t take care of my children or exercise with a large semi-auto on my hip, and despite years of military style range time provided by my dear old army grunt hubby, my hands are small and semi-autos are often uncomfortable and difficult to handle for me. Under pressure/during drills I have noticed that I will sometimes jam a semi-auto. A jammed gun is no more lethal against a pit than a small rock in the hands of a 110lb lady.

          • Good call. Frangible/hollow points are an excellent self defense round.

            Mama Bear, have you checked out the S&W M&P Shield .40? It has the stopping power of a .40, but the frame is smaller. It was more or less introduced as an option for women to carry a higher caliber without having to carry a full sized weapon. Also, look into USCCA. They offer legal defense for anyone involved in a self defense situation, for a monthly fee. Like legal carry insurance.

          • Mama bear, I am also a tiny lady, and I know exactly what you mean about semis being too big or uncomfortable. I tried a Glock at the range a few years ago; my 6’3 husband really liked it, but it was cumbersome and just not fun to shoot for me, with a particularly unpleasant recoil–it wasn’t harder than most semis or anything, I don’t know what it was, really, I just didn’t like it.

            If you ever decide you want to give a semi another try, though, ask the range if they have any Walther PK-12s. I don’t own one (yet–I’m saving up) but I love shooting it. It’s smaller, lighter, more accurate (for me, at least), very reliable, easy (but not *too* easy trigger), safety in a convenient place for small hands but not where it could be accidentally released, and basically beats every other semi I’ve ever tried. I do believe it was designed with women in mind–I’m pretty sure you can even get one with pink trim (you know, because we women looove pink, sigh), but don’t let that discourage you. 🙂

            I’ve heard good things about Rugers, too, as far as being appropriate/easier for those of us who don’t have enormous hands, and I’m itching to try one of those, but I haven’t yet.

            Anyway, just thought I’d drop the suggestion in case you or another person with smaller hands might find it helpful.

        • Agreed that guns might not be able to stop a pack of bully dogs, even one bully.

          The ATTS, American Temperament Testing Society, which is often used to monger pit bulls, actually offers chilling testimony to this.

          86% of bully dogs tested pass the test.
          Read the test. In part 4, a starter pistol is fired 3 times behind the dog. Dogs that panic fail the test.

          This tells a thinking person that if you’re trying to stop a pit bull attack, warning shots won’t stop 86% of bully dogs.

          And that’s what’s happening.

          Annually more bully dogs are shot, stabbed, strangled, beaten unconscious trying to stop an attack than pass this misused test.

      • Most times once the pack realizes they’re getting smoked they start to back off. Certainly not a guarantee with pit bulls though. The best solution is proactive not reactive.

        • Always remember that you are responsible for every round that comes out of your gun. If you miss and the bullet skips off the pavement and strikes a human, you are going to have major legal troubles.
          Not to say it is wrong to carry…because I do (Glock 26). But I also carry a stun baton and pepper spray. The gun would only be used if I have a point blank shot.

  1. Can’t they carry guns in Tenn? I don’t understand people not protecting themselves when a vicious dog charges them? Maybe they need an armed posse to escort kids to the bus stop.

    Thanks for the continuing work on getting the facts out there, Colleen.

  2. 2019 is turning into the year of the pack attack. And, yes, everyone does know that when dogs pack up, they become dangerous. This is a no-brainer about criminal charges but I will not hold my breath.

  3. I am shocked and dismayed at all of the packs of dogs taking down adult victims. Having been involved in animal control for over 30 years, I greatly miss the packs of chow mixes. They did not have anywhere near this level of dedication to kill. My heart goes out to the families reeling from these tragedies.

  4. What in the actual hell is going on with the packs of roaming dogs killing grown adults?! It’s sickening! How are dogs allowed to roam like that? Is it common in the south? I’m from the northeast. This stuff is unheard of where I’m from.
    This is what happens to roaming aggressive dogs in my state. It’s graphic, but realistic. As far as I know, no one but the dog’s owners were charged in this incident. https://youtu.be/Eu2GKtvpVyM

    If more roaming dogs met the same fate, maybe there would be fewer human fatalities. Maybe these white trash a-holes would think twice before releasing their wretched animals to harass, intimidate, and frighten their neighbors.

    It infuriates me that there are innocent people held captive by low IQ, selfish dogs owners. Many of the commenters here are victims of this same type of situation. I say use the highest velocity animal control you can use, and let the worthless, do nothing “Animal Control” do the follow up. “I feared for my life and the life of my children.” Those are the only words that should matter. If the county does nothing, call the state police. Go to your local media, go to your politicians. Go over the heads of whomever is dropping the ball in your case. Highlight their incompetency. 4 adults dead because of roaming dogs in a month is going to make people pay attention. Then again, I assume “public safety” should care about the lives of innocent people.
    Dog worship has reached a fever pitch in this country and people are dying as a result. It’s disgusting and shameful. No dog is more important than a human life. Not ever.

    Sorry if I’m flying off the handle, but these situations have me fired up. When good and decent people like Mama Bear and her babies are threatened by nasty dogs, then by the very people who are supposed to protect them, it makes me insanely angry. Mama Bear, I wish I could take care of the problem for you. I really do. I wish the “public safety” representatives actually did their jobs when they’re supposed to.

    I’m praying for everyone who has problems with dog intimidation. I hope everything works out for you.

    Condolences to the family of Mr. Moore. What a horrific situation.

    • Yes, KP I believe this is largely a southern thing (although most of us Southerners aren’t actually idiots, it seems the stupid, arrogant, trashy people overshadow the intelligent, productive, and polite individuals that never actually make the news). It used to be people turning their hunting dogs loose if they couldn’t afford to feed them anymore when I was a kid, but now it’s just pitbulls everywhere you look. Pitbulls running loose, pitbulls chained to trees, pitbulls in tiny cages, pitbulls in cars, pitbulls in Walmart, Lowe’s, PetSmart, pitbulls playing on a playground made for children (sorry, kids, you can’t play there today because SOMEONE is being SELFISH).

      Our subdivision restricts pitbulls and other dangerous breeds, but let’s be honest. You can’t stop the dogs (or their crackhead owners) from walking in from the outside.

    • There are several reasons why packs of dogs are killing people. One, of course, is the sudden elevation of dogs to human status. If you’re in the habit of reading comments following news stories about dogs, you know there are many people today who say they’d save the life of a dog before they’d save that of a human being. Just a few days ago, I read a comment by a woman who said if she saw a child and dog in the road and couldn’t avoid them both, she’d rather hit the child than the dog.

      “No-kill” shelters and laws protecting dogs also contribute to the problem. In the not-so-distant past, aggressive dogs were routinely killed, either by their owners, someone who saw them running loose or the dog pound. Now they’re “rehabilitated” and passed along to some unsuspecting individual who has no better sense than to adopt a pit bull or other dangerous breed. Accordingly, the monsters continue attacking and reproducing — pit bulls have large litters and a bitch can produce 20 to 24 puppies in a 12-month period. That’s a LOT of pit bulls!

      • I think that people who put dogs over humans have some sort of serious mental illness. I’ve definitely met some people like that, and I could tell they had some issues. I read an article the other day that a mother wrote about the loss of her beloved dog. She equated it to losing one of her CHILDREN. If that’s not sick, I don’t know what is, and I am a little worried about the welfare of her kids.

        • That’s insane! Where does that level of irrationality come from? I love my dog. He has PCSed all over creation with us. He was my constant companion when my husband was on QRF when we first got to Germany and I was a lonely wife who barely saw her husband. But my dog is my dog. My kids are my world. I will kill to protect them and would die to protect them. There is nothing that could possibly change that.
          Dog worship is really gross and it permeates every facet of society now. I don’t even get it. To compare a dog to a child is demeaning to the devotion and sacrifice that comes with true maternal or paternal love.

      • In Pima County, Arizona, a group called No-Kill Pima County put a noted animal rights extremist in charge of our tax-supported shelter. Her name is Kristin Auerbach, and I predict that, before too long, we’ll be reading that name in a case reported on DBO.

        Mark my words.

  5. Screenshot of Sharonica Palton text, quote snip: “…you got to take the garbage out with a weapon just so those dogs wouldn’t kill you…”

    Same here in Prescott. Nine months ago, I stepped out my door, out to the curb to check the mailbox, I walked 20 paces on my sidewalk along my property, and my across the street neighbor’s Australian shepherd ambush charge attacked me. That was my second self-defense case in 8,000 pedestrian miles. Telling the police that I was in immediate fear of life and limb was useless. Telephone the city and county prosecutor with same information was useless. All I got was a 21 month and ten month wait to tell the county judge the same thing. If that’s what I have to do to not have my neighbors eviscerate my viscera with their dangerous uncontrolled animals, and end up in the hospital, then so be it. I can’t change the law. All I can do is survive by operating within self defense law when my neighbors attack me with their dangerous animals, then tell the judge, after police and prosecutors lecture me about how I should just go to the hospital for reconstructive surgery when my neighbors attack me with their dogs. Oh, and they are so friendly when owner/family are in view. Left alone on their unfenced property, and a pedestrian walks by across the street, then it is survival of the one with 15 round Glock.

  6. Being there is evidence that people reported these dogs to the authorities I hope the family of this man will enjoin them in the wrongful death lawsuit against the dogs owners.

    • That’s exactly what needs to happen. Call it BSL, aka Breed-Specific Litigation.

  7. Used to be regular folks knew that dog packs were dangerous. Back in the wild west of my toddler days, when kids could play in their yards, a pack of German Shepherds roamed the neighborhood freely. New to the neighborhood, my mother was terrified to see them run into the yard while I was out playing. After rescuing me, she tracked the dogs down and found their home. She then terrified the owners with the anger of a protective mother. Those dogs never roamed freely again.

    Seriously, Animal Control is killing people in their failure to do what they are being paid for. Imagine firefighters refusing to put out fires because some small portion of the population are pyromaniacs and would rather watch them burn. That’s the same as ignorant and psychopathic dog lovers manipulating AC to the point that dogs have more freedoms than humans. Do you think I’d get away with running through the neighborhood, threatening people, killing pets and crapping on lawns?

    • Your mother would have been arrested for that nowadays. I remember my mother telling a kid that if he touched me again, she’d open a can of whoop ass that would “last him into next year”. I also remember my dad using his steel toed work boots to fight off a stray pit after it chased me down bit me in my own yard. But that was 30-some years ago. Now you’re a discriminating bigot if you think certain dog breeds are dangerous, or tell someone else’s kid that they’re out of line.

      • Doubt it. Dad was in charge of the Military Police at the time, on the base the employed half the area.

        You’re right though, you can’t even tell people not to leash their dogs as run up to you without some dumbass response like “he won’t hurt you”, to which I sometimes respond, “well, I might hurt it”. Usually the owner swears or makes some equivalent hand gesture.

        Yeah, I’ll probably get shot some day, but honestly I’ve had enough.

        • Oh yeah, they love to push their land sharks on people in public. I’ve had many people offer to let my kids pet their pits in places like Lowe’s or Walmart. The response is always “No, thanks!” and hauling ass away from the thing. What makes their dumb dog so special that they think everyone wants to pet it or even see it? My kids have two cats and a small, non-threatening dog at home for petting, thank you very much. They don’t see the risk? They don’t think of the liability if their dog bites a child? Or maybe they just don’t care if someone gets hurt.

          • I really do think they believe so whole-heartedly that they are saviors to a misunderstood and demonized breed that they want to proselytize and push that mindset on everyone they meet. I think that for some it even becomes a way to show off and brag about how THEY have some magic formula of “love and understanding” that can overcome the breed propensities that they really do, deep down, know are there. So they want to flaunt that at every opportunity. I don’t think it’s even really about the dogs or making the dogs look good, but about stoking their own egos. And for them, the good feelings they get when people pet their gripping dog outweighs any danger the public.

    • Great comparison firefighters and pyromaniacs vs animal control and disproportionately deadly dogs.

  8. “The legal standard of having to prove that the owner “knew or should have known” of the dogs’ vicious propensities (due to a previous attack) should be abolished in “pack attack” cases.”

    It should be abolished in all dog cases. Single dogs kill more people than packs. It happens every month. Shelters and pet stores should be required to tell new owners that dogs kill people and that as the owner they will be held responsible. You don’t get a “free drowning” with an unfenced pool or a “free shooting” with an unsecured gun. As an adult you are expected to know pools and guns can be dangerous. It should be the same for dogs.

  9. I hope some pictures of these ‘dogs’ show up. I’d be shocked if there wasn’t at least one pit in the mix.

  10. Quote snip from the above link: “National research shows that most experts can’t even accurately identify a breed based on visual identification,” Pugh said. “So we decided we weren’t going to be a part of that ongoing discrimination against pit bull-type dogs and mixed breeds, because we have no facts whatsoever to support what breed they are.”

    I have a fact for Alexis Pugh. He/she/ can walk past an unfenced/ungated property with one (or more) of those unidentifiable pedestrian-aggressive animals that he/she is so concerned with, and see how he/she feels and thinks when it ambush attacks him/her.

    The quintessence of intelligence is understanding the relative importance of things. Which is more important: Pedestrian safety, or taking measures that obviously lead to more unwanted dangerous, pedestrian aggressive animals let loose on the streets?

  11. “No kill” is the most dangerous, deluded, crock since bloodletting as sound medical advice.

  12. CAUGHT ON CAMERA: Hero neighbor rushes in to save boy attacked by pit bull

    https://abc11.com/caught-on-camera-hero-neighbor-rushes-in-to-save-boy-attacked-by-pit-bull/5413631/

    This kid was lucky! Maybe we need to start having our children carry bear spray. Gone are the days of innocent children being able to play in their own yard without the threat of dangerous dogs, who are eager to kill. Just think of the psychological damage this probably caused the poor little boy. Someone, please tell me this was “provoked”.

    • Thanks for the heads up in this. I see children playing unsupervised on their unfenced front lawns, totally amazed that their parents allow them to be subjected to the severe threat. Why? Because the parents think that the probability of risk is very low? I see ten year old children pushing baby strollers on the street, with no parent. What can attack them? Low crime neighborhood? Many thousands of surgeries every year due to at-large dangerous animal attack. People of America: Wake up and clear the dangerous animals from our streets!

    • Adults and first responders should get battery powered chainsaws.
      Keep them charged and handy.

      Keep them on the gardening cart. Take them out with the trash.

      If a bully dog or Malinois, attacks, end the attack.

      First responders should bring them along to every dog attack.

      Won’t ricochet like a bullet. Inexpensive. Lightweight.

  13. As I suspected….at least one dog was a pit bull mix. This dog “pack” consisted of four dogs, but two or three can kill as easily, especially if they are pit bulls…..even one pit bull can kill a grown man, and more than a few have. No one is safe if these dogs are allowed to roam loose.

  14. In cities where you must “make an appointment” to turn over a dangerous dog it should be legal to shoot them yourself. You should have immunity from prosecution for disturbing the peace,discharging a firearm in city limits,animal cruelty or any other related charge. In fact you should get a check for doing the job that you pay taxes for a city or county department to do.

    • ….and any other charge: Reckless endangerment of named and as yet unnamed persons in the vicinity.
      The city and county not only refuse to seize repeat offender at large dangerous dogs, they forcibly enable the repeat offender owner. I have had lots of in-person discussions with the police on the street during my 8,000 pedestrian miles. They tell me that the city is full of at large dogs, full of people going to the hospital after being attacked by at large dogs, so they tolerate that, because that is just the way it is. But they will not tolerate immediate need self defense cases, even when patently falling under state law allowing immediate need self defense.

    • It is sad to think how much more money shelters would have and how much safer we all would be if shelters just put incoming pits down instead of warehousing them and giving them away. Use the nutters own words against them. “It is all how they are raised. We have no way of knowing how these dogs were raised so we can’t take the risk of adopting them out.”

      • Excellent post.

        If shelters can’t contain bully dogs, no one can.
        I don’t want bully in any neighborhood.
        No one same or compassionate would.

  15. Corrections:

    I don’t want bully dogs in any community.

    No one sane or compassionate would

  16. In today’s news, policeman shoots at-large dog charging at him, one of his bullets kills a person. If he felt immediate fear of immediate injury, the at large dog owner is 100% responsible for the persons death. Size of dog and if the part of body that is threatened is medial, proximal or distal is irrelevant. Everyone has the right to immediate need self defense of any part of his body, such as ankles. The person responsible for the threat, such as the at large dog owner, in today’s case, is responsible for accidental death or injury.

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