Lovell Anderson, 4, was killed by a loose pit bull while playing in his grandmother's backyard.
Pit Bull Kills Child
Detroit, MI - A 4-year old boy is dead after being mauled by a pit bull. The attack occurred about 3:00 pm in the 9300 block of Pierson Street. The child was playing in the fenced-in backyard of his grandmother's home when the dog grabbed the child through the fence. Detroit Police Cmdr. Arnold Williams told CBS News, "She actually had to pull the child away because there was a dog that mauled the child; tried to pull the child under a gate of a fence. She was pulling the child back."
WBJK reports the pit bull did pull the child under the fence, then killed the boy. EMS pronounced the boy dead at the scene. Animal control took two dogs into custody. Police are still investigating the dog(s) involved and its owner. Family members told WBJK that they are terribly distraught. "As we know in Detroit, pit bulls are a big problem when you don't have them trained properly or tied up" or properly secured, the relative said. This could have been prevented if the dog had been secured.
"The tragedy is with the family and all we can do for everybody, for everybody who is looking at this is to support the family in this process," Cmdr. Williams told reporters at the scene. "So we're trying to do everything that we can just to help everybody through this. The loss of a child who hasn't really started their life is just something huge that nobody can really even fathom." An adult was home with the child at the time, police said. Family members believe the culprit dog belongs to a neighbor.
Child Victim Identified
Family members identified the child killed by an unsecured pit bull as Lovell Anderson. At the time of the attack, he was under the care of his grandmother -- his parents were not present, reports WBJK. The news agency also states the "dog managed to grab Anderson and pull him to the other side through a gap under the fence, before fatally attacking him." One of the two dogs taken into custody is believed to be the attacker. The other is a family dog that belongs to the boy's grandmother.
WXYZ spoke to Maple Blackshear and Monique Grant, who are sisters and the boy's aunts. Blackshear and Grant said the boy was an only child. He was visiting his grandmother's home and playing in the backyard when they were told a neighbor's dog jumped the fence and attacked. The family retained an attorney. “The event was so horrific that people across the street could hear,” attorney Peter O’Toole with Fieger Law said. “They're the ones who contacted authorities right away,” he said.
According to police, the dog then dragged the boy back to the other side through a gap in the fence. Neighbors from a block away heard the grandmother's cries for help. One neighbor "thought someone was getting beat." By late Thursday, the dog's owner had not been identified or charged. Media reports suggested the dog was a stray and had been seen by neighbors wandering the street previously. O’Toole said that it's still too soon to know who the owner is or if the city has any liability.
"We have to let the investigation take its course to find out who the owner is," O’Toole told CBS Detroit. "Then, we also have to find out if this is a repeated issue with that animal and that owner. And in that case, we will try to hold the city accountable. We want to seek justice for the family. Whoever should be held accountable, we will hold them accountable," O’Toole said. - Attorney Peter O'Toole, CBS Detroit, October 19, 2023
Broken Record in Detroit
Wayne County has a long history of fatal pit bull attacks. The county's 1.7 million population is smaller than San Bernardino County, California (2.2 million) and Harris County, Texas (4.7 million) -- the other two leading counties in fatal dog attacks. The fatal pit bull mauling issue is so persistent in Wayne County that a case study was published in 2007 that characterized pit bull mauling deaths in Detroit. In April, Daniel Bonacorsi, 58, was killed by two pit bulls habituating a vacant building in Detroit.
In late September, a northeast suburb of Detroit, Grosse Pointe Shores, which is partially located in Wayne County, passed an ordinance banning pit bulls. The ban passed in a 4-3 vote. However, the backlash from pit bull advocates and humane groups that largely reside "outside of Grosse Pointe Shores" was so extensive, that the city reversed the ordinance less than 4 weeks later. Detroit and Wayne County still retain the undesirable title as the "dogfighting capital" of the United States.
A white and brown pit bull was seized after a loose pit bull killed a Detroit child.
A male tan pit bull was seized after a loose pit bull killed a Detroit child.
Graphic Medical study: Pitbull Mauling Deaths in Detroit, by Cheryl L. Loewe MD et al., The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, Vol 28, December 2007.
View the DogsBite.org Google State Map: Michigan Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.Related articles:
04/06/23: 2023 Dog Bite Fatality: Man Killed by Two Pit Bulls Habituating a Vacant Detroit Building
08/22/19: 2019 Dog Bite Fatality: 9-Year Old Girl Killed by Three Pit Bulls on Detroit's West Side
Law enforcement departments across the United States should release consistent "baseline" information to the media and the public after each fatal dog mauling, including these items.
“Pit bulls are a big problem when you don’t have them trained properly”. Unfortunately the genetic predisposition to kill is bred into these bloodsport dogs and no amount of training can guarantee that they will be safe. These dangerous dogs should be removed from places where human beings reside.
May the family find peace someday, somehow. I hope the owner will be found and severely punished.
“Border collies are a big problem when you don’t train them properly”–when they’re acting on instinct.
Yeah, they might knock over your kid, or nip their heels or bark incessantly in frustration.
Most inane comment ever, from pitbull cultists.
You buy a dog to do a thing then blame the training when it does the thing.
There is no way to “train” the violent, BRED IN tendencies out of ANY pit bull or other aggressive breed dog. They are ALL dangerous dogs by default because of their breeding. Making excuses for them is inane.
Right you are. They should be banned. Even one death is enough…
Beagles or poodles don’t pull kids under the fence and kill them. It’s a bloodsport dog thing. It’s very difficult to keep a dog from doing what it was BRED to do. Your neighbors pointer may point at a trash can that it finds interesting, or someone’s collie may try to herd your kids if it’s running loose.
Bloodsport dogs should not be PET animals. The traits that were BRED into them make them unsafe as PETS, no matter HOW they are raised or treated.
KaD:
I’d bet this month’s laundry money that the pitbull was stalking and hunting that kid through the fence for at least a couple of days until it figured out how to get through. All the while, as it watched, it grew more and more frustrated on how to get to its target.
Because that’s what pitbulls DO. Their killing of other dogs and human prey isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. It’s what they’re bred for. When they can’t get what they want–their frustration grows.
This is what makes them apex predators that don’t belong in human company.
I can’t count the number of pitbulls that started out glaring at my dog while the owner holds them back, then on the next passing by, start barking at him, then by the time a few walkbys happen it will be lunging and tearing to get at him while the owner struggles to maintain control over the now homicidally frustrated animal.
It only takes one slip and that ends in the dog killing the human to get to the dog, or killing the dog, or killing both once it hits the state of arousal where its unstoppable. In this case, the target was the child.
That’s why the don’t belong in human societies.
Boni, great insights. Also, I wonder about the “nanny” pitbull that was already on the property as their family “pet.” How would their pitbull have reacted to the attack the child? If it had been present, would the family dog protect said child or join in the attack? It appears, though, the child was in the backyard alone when the monster pulled him through the fence. So tragic. Sounds like Detroit is littered with litters of pits.
Thanks Teresa.
The only thing a pitbull is bred to protect is itself and its tug toy.
They’re utterly useless as protection dogs because once they go nova, they’ll maul anything and that includes the idiot owner who sicced the dog on someone/another dog, in the first place.
So no, in most cases a pitbull will not protect its owner.
Neither will a husky or a maltese but nobody I know is out there pretending that they will.
You’d do better off buying a chihuahua. They have better human-guarding instincts.
A Little boy called Xavier was disembowelled by a Pitbull in Detroit a few years back.
He was also pulled under a fence.
Ban pitbulls immediately.
R.I.P to the latest kid.
I seen this story on the news and I already knew the dog was a pitbull and of course the family members is going to sing the same song it how you raised the pitbull its the little boy fault he shouldn’t play next to the gate he spook my precious pitbull so sad that lovelle was just playing outside like most babies and get killed by one the dangerous dog I wonder if she would have the same attitude and say the same if that precious pitbull killed her son or daughter niece or nephew.
The grandma also own a pitbull but he or she wasn’t apart of the attack and I find it odd that their precious baby died and the first thing the parents do is hire a lawyer to what make money of your dead child especially he’s their only child.
I really tire of the platitudes of police officials and politicians. “Such a tragedy”, “We need to support the family”, “A terrible loss”, etc. This precious little boy should never have died this way. It was entirely preventable. Until officials take action on outlawing bloodsport breeds – or even just speak the truth about these breeds!!! – I don’t want to hear how sorry they are.
“Sorry” is what people say when they have zero intention of fixing the problem they created.
can’t remember who told me this but I’ve found it to be true, more often than not.
Boni, so true, now that I think about it. And it’s truly pathetic coming from an officer or an elected official when this happens over… and over… and over again!
Until officials realize that pit bulls server absolutely no purpose in 21st Century United States and ELIMINATES the entire pit bull bloodline (no matter what they call the animal) then these kind of horrific incidences will continue to happen. And we will continue to hear these insincere platitudes from those same officials.
The death of a child in this manner is horrific. I doubt if the dog’s owner has any money, as they rarely do.
However, I hope the dog’s owner can be charged, found guilty and sent to prison. Maybe that would serve as a deterrent to this type of crime.
bullbaiting animal was invented by man to kill bulls not as pets,so why are bullbaiting animals allowed to be owned as pets, so no public safety, dangerour animals as pets , hyena, alligator,large snake capable of swallowing humans, bamboo ,whats next as pets a leashed rihno or cougar
I hate to say it, but those dogs look related, and not just by breed.
This is such a tragedy. I lost my dog to a vicious pitbull this past Monday, 10/23/23. I took her out to use it in our gated backyard and a pitbull managed to break a hole through the gate and maul my baby. I am traumatized and hurt.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kiWf_dYbi0I
People actually believe in this garbage: That you need a guardian dogs for your kid to grow up !
57 000 000 views !!!!
In comparison to this crowd of people here it is ridiculous to hope that if the girl in this video gets “unexpected” behavior from her “guardians” something will change…
No, because her father will feel sorry equally for her end for the animals.
People – pit bull lovers needs special, separate planet for their fetish objects and their way of (not ) thinking and feelings.
I visit this blog, and kind of .. in hope that something will change … but …unfortunately .. we are witnessing more and more lose of life , young or old – and only the pain grows ….
Right you are. They should be banned. Even one death is enough…