Posted on May 2, 2019 by Colleen Lynn

2019 Dog Bite Fatality: Family Pit Bull Kills 2-Year Old Boy in Louisville, Kentucky; Three Adults Indicted

On Thursday, Isaiah Geiling, 2, was mauled to death by a family pit bull in Louisville.

Mother Fights Extradition
UPDATE 01/07/21: The mother of a child killed by a pit bull is now fighting extradition from Shelby County, Indiana to face charges in the death of her son. Jennifer Geiling, of Louisville, was arrested on December 30, on a warrant issued out of Jefferson County, Kentucky, on charges of manslaughter in the second-degree and reckless homicide. Due to Covid-19, her trial, which also charged two other adults, has been continuously been delayed. Geiling eventually fled to Indiana.

The Shelby County Post reports new details, including that the dog had attacked multiple people in the past, including its owner; a neighbor had previously shot at the dog and that Louisville Police had previously responded to calls about the aggressive dog. According to testimony from a neighbor, Geiling blamed her child, saying, that the child "always screams and sets the dog off." Geiling remains in custody at the Shelby County Jail while the extradition proceedings continue.

"According to Kentucky Court Records that obtained by the Shelby County Prosecutor, the charges stem from an incident on May 2, 2019, when Geiling’s 2 year-old son was mauled to death by a pit bull. According to the report and information from an investigator with the Jefferson County, Kentucky Commonwealth Attorney’s Office, this not the first time that the pit bull had injured the child, and the pit bull also had a history of aggression against various others as well, up to the point that one neighbor had previously shot at the dog. It had a history of attacking and biting people, including its owner, and the Louisville Police Department had responded before to calls regarding the aggressive dog.

The report indicates that on May 2, 2019, another woman was lying on a bed and watching television with the child when the pit bull (named "King") jumped onto the bed and immediately grabbed the child by the head and began shaking him violently. The dog then pulled the child to the floor, where it clamped onto the child’s head/neck area and resumed violently shaking the child. By the time that two neighbors were able to get the dog to release the child, it was too late." - Shelby County Post, January 7, 2021

07/23/19: Three People Indicted
Three people have been indicted after the fatal dog mauling of a 2-year old boy back in May. Jack Charpring Jr., 50, and Sharon (Sharyn) Charpring, 53, are both charged with second-degree manslaughter in connection to the brutal death of 2-year old Isaiah Geiling. The Charprings reside at the home in the 3800 block of Grand Avenue where the deadly attack occurred. The child's mother, 25-year old Jennifer Geiling, faces a charge of complicity to reckless homicide.

Prosecutors said the Charpings and the Geilings are not related, but lived in the same residence on Grand Avenue, reports WLKY.

Jack Charpring owned the male pit bull named King that fatally attacked the boy. He previously spoke to WAVE-TV but refused to be identified. In a husky voice, Charpring stated in May: "I know it was an accident. But, at the same time, he did take a little boy's life accidentally. Eye for an eye. Little boy died, he [King] deserves to die." Charpring also claimed his dog had never bitten Isaiah before. Both Charprings can bee seen in the background of this news footage looking anxious.

The child's mother has multiple Facebook pages, each with different last names. After Isaiah was killed, his maternal grandmother, Cynthia Coy, asked WDRB, "Where was my daughter? Was she there?" Coy also said the dog had previously bitten Isaiah. She showed a photograph of the boy's dog bite injury too. Thus, there are now significant criminal charges. The adults who were Isaiah's caretakers knew about the dog's vicious propensities and did not protect Isaiah from this dog.

Second-degree manslaughter (involuntary manslaughter) in Kentucky is a Class C felony and is punishable by a term of imprisonment of 5 to 10 years. Reckless homicide is a closely related offense, but is a Class D felony and is punishable by a term of imprisonment of 1 to 5 years.

05/03/19: Dog Attacked Child Before
On Friday, WLKY updated their report with new information. They spoke to the child's maternal grandmother, Cynthia Coy, who said the deadly dog mauling came just weeks after the dog had attacked Isaiah, ripping his ear. Coy provided a photograph of the child's injury. "So obviously the dog has attacked him before," Coy said. "Where was my daughter? Was she there?" Coy asked, referring to the home on Grand Avenue where the fatal dog mauling occurred on Thursday.

According to WLKY footage, Isaiah was with a "relative" at the home on Grand Avenue when the dog attacked. Shelby Chadwell, who along with his cousin risked his life to save the boy, stated yesterday, "The man that owns the dog had a very tough time wrestling the dog, pinning it, and getting it under control to take it back home." Unidentified neighbors told WLKY the dog was known for its aggressiveness and had gotten loose at least two or three times in the past.

05/02/19: Family Pit Bull-Mix Kills Boy
Louisville, KY - A 2-year old boy is dead after being attacked by a dog in Louisville's Chickasaw neighborhood. The attack occurred inside a home in the 3800 bock of Grand Avenue. Officers were dispatched to the home at 12:00 pm, after a report that a dog had bitten a child, according to Louisville Metro Police. When officers arrived at the scene, they found the injured boy and began performing CPR. He was transported to Norton Children's Hospital, where he later died.

A reporter from WLKY Tweeted earlier today that the attacking dog is a pit bull. The WLKY Facebook page shows an image of a dog appearing to pit bull-lab mixture being taken from the home on Grand Avenue. So far, police have not released breed information. The address of the home on Grand Avenue is also listed on the Foreclosure.com website. The dog was taken into custody by Louisville Metro Animal Services and will be held in quarantine for 10 days.

Audio Dispatch Logs

Audio dispatch from Louisville Fire on Broadcastify.com clearly states the dog is a pit bull and the child was bitten in the head. "Engine 19, I have you responding, this is EMS code 3. Police are responding along with EMS … Approximately a 3-year old child that has been bitten by a pit bull in the head. Heavy bleeding. Child is conscious. Time is 12:02," states dispatch. The dispatcher then quickly relays a critical update to Engine 19, "Update, advised, this child has stopped breathing."

Afternoon Updates

The Louisville Courier Journal reports that police responded to the home in the 3800 block of Grand Avenue about noon on reports of a child in the mouth of a pit bull, according to dispatch records. Officers performed CPR on the young boy before the ambulance arrived. A spokesman for Louisville Metro Animal Services, Teeya Barnes, confirmed to Courier Journal that her agency responded to the residence on Grand Avenue after reports that a child was injured by a pit bull.

"He was barely breathing on the floor, a lot of blood, face down. It was the worst. It's not something I want to relive." - Neighbor Shelby Chadwell

WDRB spoke to neighbors who rushed to help the boy. Shelby Chadwell, who lives next-door, said a woman pounded on his door Thursday morning asking for help. Chadwell and his cousin ran into the home and found the dog on top of the child. "It was a ferocious dog," Chadwell said. "We had to get the dog out of the room. So my cousin used sticks and bashed them together and scared the dog away. We put the dresser in the hallway to block the dog off and get out of there," he said.

WDRB also captured footage of the dog while animal control officers used control poles to contain it. The dog is seen biting the poles. Investigators say the only thing that is left to determine about the dog's breed is whether it is a purebred pit bull or pit bull-mix. Lt. Emily McKinley said that responding to the scene was difficult for everyone involved. "I know a lot of people are pretty shook up having to go through that and experience that, including our officers," McKinley said.

The male family pit bull-mix that attacked and killed 2-year old Isaiah Geiling on Thursday.

The home on Grand Avenue where a 2-year old boy was killed by a pit bull-mix in Louisville.

View the DogsBite.org Google State Map: Kentucky Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.

Baseline reporting requirements:
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.

Posted on April 27, 2019 by Colleen Lynn

2019 Dog Bite Fatality: Baby Girl Mauled to Death by Rottweiler in Henderson, Nevada

Kyna Marie Pamela Deshane, 1-year old, died after being mauled by a rottweiler.

Rottweiler Kills Baby
Henderson, NV - A baby girl is dead after being attacked by a rottweiler, Henderson police confirmed. The deadly dog mauling occurred in the 100 block of Appian Way just before 8:00 am Saturday. The Henderson Police Department, animal control, and Fire Department responded to the home near Horizon Drive and Pacific Avenue. Officers arrived to find a 15-month old girl bitten and injured by a rottweiler. She was transported to Henderson Hospital, where she later died.

On Monday the coroner identified the victim as Kyna Marie Pamela Deshane from Ely. She died due to "multiple injuries from a mauling."

The rottweiler was 4-years old, according to police. Details of the child's injuries were not released. The dog was owned by a friend of the family and was euthanized at the owner's request, police said. The Clark County Coroner's Office will identify the child and the cause and manner of death. The baby's mauling death comes after an unreported fatal pit bull attack in Henderson last May. The dogs had been adopted from the Henderson animal shelter eight months earlier.

Top Counties in Fatal Dog Attacks

Clark County now joins three other counties in the U.S. for the highest rate of fatal dog attacks. As of April 27, 2019, Maricopa County, AZ, Harris County, TX, Riverside County, CA and Clark County, NV all share the distinction of having 8 fatal dog maulings since 2005, the highest ranking counties on record. The problem with Clark County is that they have reached this distinction due to the added number of deaths since 2016. Public shelters adopted out two of these killer dogs too.

In January, Henderson claimed the "no-kill" status. The absence of media scrutiny after two dogs they adopted out killed a man might have helped.

Both of the shelter dog inflicted human fatalities occurred in 2018. The grisly unreported fatal mauling of Bradley Cline, 62, occurred in late May. The attackers, a pair of male pit bulls (about 1-year old), had been adopted from the Henderson Animal Shelter in September 2017. The police report stated the attack lasted up to 20 minutes. In October, Susan Sweeney, 58, was killed by a 3-year old mastiff-mix her family adopted from The Animal Foundation just several days earlier.

A 15-month old baby girl was killed by a rottweiler while visiting her grandfather's home.

The deadly rottweiler attack occurred in the city of Henderson. The dog was euthanized.

View the DogsBite.org Google Map: U.S. Fatal Rottweiler Attacks By State

Posted on April 15, 2019 by Colleen Lynn

Observing 2019 National Dog Bite Prevention Week®1

Read a brief history of National Dog Bite Prevention Week and how, over the years, various co-sponsors of the annual event have utilized this safety week to push their national agendas.

Last year, 5,714 Postal Service employees were victimized by dogs, down from 6,244 in 2017. Learn about the cities with the most attacks and view the 2018 Postal Service dog attack map.

We highlight two recent postal carrier dog maulings: a brutal pit bull attack in Kentucky in March and a violent attack on a Detroit letter carrier captured on a motorist's dash cam in February.

National Postal Service Attacks
DogsBite.org - On Sunday, the United States Postal Service kicked off their 25th National Dog Bite Prevention Week. The Postal Service was established in 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General. In this year's post, we briefly discuss how various special interest groups co-sponsoring the event have utilized this safety week to further their own agendas, including when the week first debuted in 1995.

We discuss the Postal Service dog attack national rankings for 2018 and how the double-digit increase of package deliveries by the USPS, including deliveries seven-days-a-week, caused a surge of attacks in 2016, the highest in three decades. We also discuss two recent high-profile maulings of mail carriers, one captured on dramatic video, and the reality that we live in an era of severe and fatal dog maulings, but few in the public sphere carry a risk as high as a letter carrier.

A History of Agenda-Ridden Co-Sponsors

Critics Outraged Over HSUS

The first National Dog Bite Prevention Week began in 1995 in a joint venture with the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). It was a $15 million dollar campaign that included mailing a postcard to all 128 million U.S. households. This outraged HSUS critics, who stated the mailing provided the HSUS with free nationwide advertising. The postcard included the HSUS logo and its contact information to learn more "about dog bite prevention and responsible pet ownership."2

"The whole project was supposedly to prevent dog bites, but what it really does is to promote the HSUS agenda." - National Animal Interest Alliance, 1995

HSUS critics were also irate that the postcard titled, "Don't let your dog bite the hand that serves you!" contained as it's first tip: "Spay or neuter your dog -- unneutered dogs are more likely to bite!" Critics claimed the tip promoted the HSUS's agenda against "pet overpopulation," chiefly targeted at dog breeders. In 1995, this unneutered claim was supported by a single study published in 1994. Today, it is widely accepted that male castration does reduce roaming.3

According to an archive created by HSUS critics (we extracted 4 pages), Postal Service spokesman Mark Saunders said the order in which the tips appeared was random and he was unaware of any wider agenda on pets by the HSUS. "We approached the HSUS," not the other way around, Saunders said, who coordinated National Dog Bite Prevention Week in 1995 and for many years thereafter. As of 2018, Saunders was still a spokesman for the Postal Service.

AVMA & Insurance Groups

Thus began the politicking by various special interest groups behind a national week designed to promote the safety of postal carriers by reducing dog bites and attacks. By 2003, the American Veterinary Medical Association had "adopted" the event. In 2008, the AVMA received a trademark for the logo. In 2014, the AVMA received a trademark for the name and logo. So now, when the Postal Service uses the name, "National Dog Bite Prevention Week," it must be noted with an ®.

This year, the AVMA observed the national week on April 7-13. The event is listed on their Dog Bite Prevention page, which also lists their agenda items like, "Why breed-specific legislation is not the answer." State Farm, a co-sponsor of the week, boasts a more discreet anti-BSL agenda, "any dog CAN bite regardless of breed or type," along with a for-profit sales pitch, "State Farm is one of the few insurance companies in the country that does not have a breed restriction list."

The USPS National Dog Bite Prevention Week this year is April 14-20. The Postal Service describes the week in their campaign kit as, "a public service campaign that offers safety tips and emphasizes the need for increased owner responsibility" to help prevent dog attacks. "From nips and bites to vicious attacks, aggressive dog behavior poses a serious threat to our employees." Unlike animal and insurance organizations, the Postal Service has no piggybacking agenda.

Postal Service Dog Attack National Rankings

National & Local Dog Attack Data

Last year, 5,714 Postal Service employees were victimized by dogs. One gains vivid clarity of the volume of these attacks on their 2018 dog attack map. This is a decrease from 6,244 in 2017 and 6,755 in 2016, which was the highest in three decades. In 2017, the Associated Press attributed the surge of attacks to the double-digit increase of package deliveries by the USPS, including deliveries seven-days-a-week, due to agreements struck with Amazon in 2013 and 2014.

"The high for [mail carrier] attacks dated back to the 1980s, at more than 7,000, before maulings by pit bulls and other potentially aggressive dogs became a public issue." - Associated Press, April 2, 2017

Data from the Postal Service also shows that for the second year in a row, Houston led all cities in attacks on mail carriers, 75, followed by Los Angeles, 60. There were four Texas cities in the top 10 cities: Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Fort Worth. The only other state with multiple listings in the top 10 was Ohio (Cleveland and Columbus). When looking at top states, USPS carriers in California were victimized by dogs the most (794) and nearly twice as many as in Texas (462).

Also highlighted in this year's news release is the technology the Postal Service uses to support carrier safety. The hand-held devices used by carriers to confirm customer delivery, include a feature to indicate if a dog is at an address. Secondly, the Package Pickup app asks customers to indicate if dogs are at their address when they schedule pickups, which allows USPS to send alerts to those carriers. Hopefully, technology can keep the trends of attacks moving downward.

Help Protect Your Postal Carriers

Last year, many attacks reported by letter carriers came from dogs whose owners regularly used the phrase, "My dog won't bite."
When a letter carrier delivers mail or packages to your front door, place your dog in a separate room and close that door before opening the front door. Dogs have been known to burst through screen doors or plate glass windows to attack visitors.
Parents should remind children and other family members not to take mail directly from letter carriers in the presence of the family pet. The dog may view the letter carrier handing mail to a family member as a threatening gesture.

Vicious Dog Attacks Victimizing Mail Carriers

Kentucky Pit Bull Attack

On March 25, a U.S. Postal Service carrier was viciously attacked by a pit bull while on her mail route in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. USPS employee Jill Cooper was airlifted to TriStar Skyline Medical Center in Nashvillle. Debra Alexander, 54-years old, was immediately charged with harboring a vicious animal, Hopkinsville police said. The arrest citation stated, the dog "viciously attacked" Cooper and "it took two people to fight and remove the dog from the victim," reports WKRN.

A week later, local mail carrier Curtiss McColm spoke at a Hopkinsville City Council meeting. He read a letter that he prepared for the council, detailing his concerns about the hazards letter carriers face. Among them, "traffic obstacles, aggressive drivers, unsupervised children, walking obstacles and elevated risk of all these hazards when darkness falls and our ability to see is impaired. But, aggressive and vicious dogs are possibly our biggest hazard," McColm said.

Speaking on behalf of himself, not his employer, McColm also proposed several strategies to reduce these attacks, including banning pit bulls. McColm cited the Kentucky Court of Appeals decision in Bess v. Bracken County Fiscal Court, which upheld the county's pit bull ban. McColm also proposed muzzling, insurance or tethering requirements for pit bull owners and to place prioritization on animal control, especially when carriers make calls about aggressive dogs.

Debra Alexander (AKA Debra Jones and several other aliases) began a 5-year parole term on March 18, 2019, just one week before her dog violently attacked Cooper, according to the Kentucky Online Offender Look Up. She was convicted of robbery in the second-degree, a class C felony, in Christian County District Court on September 26, 2018. After the dog attack, Alexander was charged with harboring a vicious animal, which carries a fine and/or up to 60 days in jail.4

Back in February, 1-year old Ashton McGhee was killed by a family pit bull-mix while visiting his grandmother's home in Guthrie, about 35 miles from Hopkinsville. Ashton lived in Hopkinsville with his mother, Miranda McGhee. Alexander and the boy's mother are Facebook friends. Please take a moment to consider this. Alexander knows the parent of a child who was killed by a pit bull. Less than two months later, her own pit bull savagely attacked a mail carrier, requiring an airlift.

Detroit Pit Bull Attack

Also in February, a vicious attack on a Detroit mail carrier was captured on a motorist's dash cam. The six-minute video is difficult to watch. The pit bull is latched onto the carrier's foot, while the male carrier is lying on the side of a residential street (a scene not too different than an image released this year by the USPS for National Dog Bite Prevention Week). The man inside the vehicle is distressed and honking the horn, as a woman holding a broom tries to help the carrier.

A man wearing a red hat gets out of the vehicle and hurls a trashcan at the pit bull then beats the dog with a "Club." All the while, the carrier is screaming, still on the ground with the pit bull latched onto his foot. At 3 minutes, a person appears with a leash. By 4 minutes, they have extracted the dog from the carrier. By 4:22, the pit bull is loose again, but appears injured. Then a car door slams. "Thank you," says the mail carrier to the man in the red hat, now safely inside his car.

But the pit bull is not finished. Next, it goes after the woman who had been carrying the broom. The man wearing the red hat shouts, "Get in the house!" The camera gets flipped upside down and honking is heard. "Get her in the house, NOW!" he yells again. By 5:40, the camera is righted and the man in the red hat is back inside his car with the carrier. He considers moving his car before calling 911 then realizes, "You're the government bro (USPS) -- I'm calling right now."

The unnamed owner of the pit bull told WXZY, "I used to tease and say, 'Oh you know he's a little push over -- he wouldn't bite anybody.'"

After the video went viral, Detroit media reported the attack happened in the 20000 block of Ardmore Street on February 22. The letter carrier was reported to be in stable condition, but the pit bull was able to bite through his boot. At one point, the pit bull is seen latched onto the carrier's forearm and hand as well. The USPS released a statement thanking all of the people who helped the carrier. Detroit Animal Care and Control took the pit bull, named "Boss Hog," into custody.

On April 15, in alliance with 2019 Dog Bite Prevention Week, the victim of the Detroit pit bull mauling, postal carrier Todd Bridges spoke for the first time publicly. "I turn around, I see a pit bull charging at me in full force," Bridges said. "Each day I try to push it further and further back into my mind. I try not to do anything that is going to trigger it." Bridges said he unleashed his entire canister of dog spray on the pit bull. "I sprayed in his face, eyes and his mouth," Bridges said. "It's like it didn't even phase him." Oneil Colley was also at the public awareness event today, where he was presented with a Hero Award. - ClickOnDetroit, April 15, 2019

Summary & Call to Action

With a double-digit increase of package deliveries by the Postal Service, including deliveries seven-days-a-week, we remind all dog owners to be vigilant in your efforts to ensure the safety of your Postal Service carriers, as well as your UPS and FedEx carriers. All dogs are territorial and present a biting risk to these employees. If you are using the mobile USPS Package Pickup application (or website application), please let them know if there is a dog at your location.

For future observation of National Dog Bite Prevention Week, our nonprofit will only observe the week that is steered by the Postal Service, an entity that has no other agenda than to protect their employees and to remind dog owners that vigilance is needed to prevent bites and attacks. "Boss Hog," unsurprisingly, shot out of his home when the owner's nephew tried to leave. The hero in the red hat, Oneil Colley, drove up to the scene while the vicious attack was already in progress.

As the 2017 Associated Press article noted, "The high for [mail carrier] attacks dated back to the 1980s, at more than 7,000, before maulings by pit bulls and other potentially aggressive dogs became a public issue." These maulings are now a larger public issue than ever, but few in the public sphere carry a risk as high as a letter carrier. Remember what mail carrier Curtiss McColm said at the city council meeting, "aggressive and vicious dogs are possibly our biggest hazard."

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National map showing the 5,714 dog attacks on U.S. Postal Service carriers in 2018.

Oneil Colley seen with postal carrier Todd Bridge on March 29, one month after rescuing him.

1National Dog Bite Prevention Week is a registered trademark of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
2We believe the extracted archive is mainly from a July-August 1995 NAIA newsletter, as is referenced in the piece ("Dog Bite Prevention Campaign Pairs Post Office with Animal Rights Organization," NAIA News, July-August 1995). The NAIA website dates back to 1997, so we could not find this specific newsletter source. It's certainly believable the NAIA would have taken this stance in 1995. This all occurred over two decades ago, when the spay/neutering message to the public was still being villafied. It's a rather fascinating piece of history!
3Surprisingly, little research has been done in this area. Which Dogs Bite? A Case Control Study of Risk Factors, was published in 1994. It was based on 1991 Denver County dog bite data, thus pit bull behavior was excluded since Denver banned pit bulls in 1989. The study concluded that dogs most likely to bite were "male, unneutered and chained." In 1997, the Effects of Castration on Problem Behaviors in Male Dogs with Reference to Age and Duration of Behavior, by Neilson et al., found that sterilizing males was "most effective in altering objectionable urine making, mounting, and roaming." Some aggressive behaviors were curbed in a fewer than one-third of the dogs.
4Sections 258.235 and 258.990 of the Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS).

Related website pages:

Posted on April 11, 2019 by Colleen Lynn

2018 Dog Bite Fatality: Pair of Adopted Male Pit Bulls Mauled to Death a 62-Year Old Man in Henderson, Nevada Last Year

Pair of male pit bulls believed to be Spike and Zeus three months before killing a man.

DogsBite.org - During 2018, we sent out 10 public information requests to uncover unreported dog bite fatalities, as well as to gain more information on cases that did receive media coverage. There were a total of 36 deaths in 2018. Our requests uncovered two of these 36 deaths that otherwise were unreported, or in the case of a devastating family pit bull mauling in Henderson in May, was only reported as a second dog mauling death in Clark County, Nevada with no other details.

In October 2018, Susan Sweeney, 58-years old, was brutally killed by a mastiff-mix she adopted several days earlier from The Animal Foundation in Las Vegas -- the county seat of Clark County. Her death made national headlines. Yet, five months earlier, also in Clark County, a 62-year old man was viciously mauled and killed by a pair of male pit bulls adopted from the Henderson Animal Shelter eight months earlier. There were no media reports about his mauling death.1

Both fatal dog attacks that went unreported in 2018 involved a destructive attack by a family pit bull on the dog owner's parent.

On May 23, 2018, Henderson police were dispatched to a home on Shimmering Glen Avenue about 7:30 pm. Officers found the male victim "suffering from serious injuries to his throat, neck, face and other extremities," states the police report. Bradley Cline, 62, was transported to Sunrise Hospital for medical treatment. Police determined that four pit bulls resided in the home. Arriving officers observed "large pools of blood covering the entirety of the living room," states the report.

A witness said that Cline was attempting to take a female pit bull, named "Terror Vicious Cuddle Bugs," outside when a pair of male pit bulls, Spike and Zeus, attacked the female. When Cline intervened to stop the fight, both males attacked him. The attack lasted up to 20 minutes, states the report. Cline died of his injuries three days later. The male pit bulls' owner, Cline's son, told police he adopted Spike and Zeus on September 19, 2017 from the Henderson Animal Shelter.

The neutered, microchipped, gray and white pit bulls were about 1-year old at the time of the attack, states the report. Both dogs were euthanized. A February 17, 2018 Facebook post shows a family member had tried to rehome the pair of male sibling pit bulls because, "we can't keep them with our other pit bulls," she wrote. Three months later, in a grisly mauling of up to 20 minutes long, leaving "blood evidence on the walls, floors, furniture in the room," the dogs killed Cline.

The Clark County Coroner ruled the cause of death as "canine mauling" and the manner of death an accident. Our initial public information request was to the coroner to ensure that our records matched the number of dog bite-related deaths over a 6-year period (Jan 1, 2013 to Dec 31, 2018) in Clark County.2 We then requested and were able to obtain records from the Henderson Police Department about the May 26 dog mauling death of Cline and the outcome of the involved dogs.

Lastly, the police report also states, "It was learned that 4 pit bulls were currently in the house, secured in rooms, the garage, and the backyard." While details about the day-to-day housing of the dogs is unknown, we do know the pair of males could not be kept with the other pit bulls. Thus, a crate-and-rotate routine was needed in the multi-pit bull household to keep the dogs from fighting. A similar scenario, which did not prevent the fatal attack of a toddler, occurred in March.

View the DogsBite.org Google State Map: Nevada Fatal Pit Bull Attacks.

1The last recorded fatal dog mauling in Henderson involved the heavily litigated case of a dog named "Onion," a mastiff-Rhodesian ridgeback that killed a 1-year old boy in April 2012. After two years of legal wrangling between the City of Henderson and animal rights advocates, the city released the dog to the Lexus Project, which sent the dog to an unnamed out-of-state rescue. Perhaps that is why there was a tight lid on Cline's case. Henderson fought hard for two years to put Onion down only to become the center of a national debate to "save a dog" that violently killed an innocent child. Six years after the boy's death, revelations about Onion continue. In 2017, after "another" upheaval at the city of Albuquerque’s Animal Welfare agency due to allowing potentially dangerous shelter dogs to be adopted to the public, the rescue was identified. At that time, on the hot seat was director Paul Caster, who had hired an animal rights colleague from Colorado, Deb Brinkley, as an associate director of the department. Brinkley admitted that it was her Colorado animal rescue, DMK Rehoming, that stepped into "save" Onion after the dog killed the boy. Brinkley was also on the hot seat due to her "frequent habit of blaming victims for dog bites," reported the Albuquerque Journal. Brinkley was later "placed on administrative leave after revelations surfaced that she cherry-picked adoptable dogs, including puppies, from the city shelters for transfer to her private animal rescue. The rescue sold puppies for $250 when the city of Albuquerque was charging $80," reported the Albuquerque Journal.
2We do not include dog bite sepsis deaths in our fatality statistics, so we redacted that victim's name.

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