GEORGIA -- The screech from a metal swing in motion echoed across the park. The shriek of playing children followed.
Looking back, Bernard Moultrie is sure that's what caught the pit bulls' attention.
"They heard that, and they took off," Moultrie said.
With that burst of high-pitched sound, the dogs turned from Moultrie's yard, where the larger one had been trying to climb a fence to get to Moultrie's dog. The pits ran across the street toward the playground with Moultrie on their heels.
Even a week later, Moultrie can recount every horrible second of what followed. He is still visibly shaken. As terrified children scrambled onto playground equipment in Gordonston's Treat Park, Moultrie screamed to them: "Climb high! Climb high!"
Moultrie was joined at the park by Herbert Swain and Henry Murphy. All three made split-second decisions that saved the life of 7-year-old Javon Roberson, who was being mauled by one of the dogs, and protected the other children. The Savannah City Council has invited the three to Thursday's council meeting so they can be recognized for their heroism.
Swain appreciates the handshakes, back-slaps and praise that have come from total strangers, but in his mind a higher power guided them the night of June 21.
How else do you explain, he asks, how neither he nor Murphy were bitten as they beat the dogs with bricks?
"We were two men with two bricks - that's all we could find," Swain said. "That's why I know God was there. If you had asked me before to take a brick and hit a pit bull on the head, I couldn't have done it. It was so traumatic. I don't know how we did it."
'A monster'
Moultrie was at home when he heard his dog acting up. It wasn't like the animal to bark so incessantly.
Moultrie looked out and saw the larger pit bull climbing his fence to get to the dog. He ran outside, grabbed a garden hose and began spraying the intruder.
The dog circled around the fence and made another attempt to climb.
Moultrie ran to get a .32-caliber handgun, but as he approached, the dogs ran for the park, which is on the corner of Treat Avenue and Gable Street. It was almost 8 p.m., and neighborhood children were swinging and scrambling over a jungle gym in the cooler evening hours.
All but Javon made it to safety. He was on one of the swings, tried to swing harder, to pull away from the dog that leapt at his legs and back.
As the dog pulled him to a stop, Javon tried to run for the playground equipment. He made it to the first level, but as he climbed for the second, the dog brought him down.
Murphy, 57, reacted first. Grabbing a brick, he wrapped one arm around Javon, and with the other beat repeatedly on the pit bull that had latched onto the boy's head. As Murphy began to tire, Swain swung with another brick. Finally, the dog released. The second dog went after the children at the top of a slide, but other adults chased it away.
Moultrie had run back to his house for the gun. Seeing the dazed dog had let go, Moultrie tossed his gun to Swain. Moultrie wasn't sure, he said, that he could close the distance fast enough before the dog might attack again.
"I pitched him the gun, and he caught it and shot him twice," Moultrie said. "That was it for that big red monster."
Murphy, too, is still upset by the attack. It's been hard to get the images out of his mind. Murphy is active in the neighborhood; he knows all the children, but Javon is a favorite. He checked in on the boy almost daily, making sure he was minding his manners and trading jokes.
Now that Javon is recovering, Murphy wants to focus on long-term solutions. He is active in the East Savannah Community Association and wants neighbors to discuss how to keep their children safe from the dogs.
"Something's got to be done," he said. "If you're walking one of these dogs on a public street, you should be stopped and made to show the dog is current on his vaccines. I don't care if it's profiling. These dogs need to be stopped."
One complaint
Savannah-Chatham metro detectives are investigating the attack.
They have not found any previous reports of violent behavior.
The owners, said Julian Miller, police spokesman, were cited once before for allowing one of the dogs to run loose, Even in that complaint, there was no claim that the dog attacked a person or other dog or acted aggressive in any way, Miller said.
The day of the attack, a 19-year-old woman was helping her parent's move. The parents own the dogs, and had asked the 19-year-old to take them to another relative's house. The dogs would stay there while the parents finished moving.
The 19-year-old took the dogs to the relative's house, which is near the park. The 19-year-old had stepped away from the car when an 11-year-old girl with her opened her car door. The dogs made a break for it.
Investigators are consulting with the District Attorney's Office to determine what, if any, charges can be brought. Even the most likely charge, failure to have a dog on a leash, is a misdemeanor, Miller said.
Police are not releasing the owners' names because it is not certain they will face any charges.
"Everything that we've been told about how the dogs got away is plausible," Miller said. "We've found nothing to refute. You can argue a lot of 20-20 hindsight, but from everything we can tell, it was an accident, a tragic accident."
Young victim recovering
Family members hope Javon will be out of intensive care at Memorial University Medical Center by the end of the week. The boy remains sedated, breathing through a tube. His mother, Tracie Roberson, said he thrashes in his sleep, trying to get something off him.
"It scares me to see him do that," she said Tuesday.
Javon already has been through two surgeries, Roberson said - a two-hour mouth operation and a five-hour facial surgery. Roberson says doctors are telling her there's a 50/50 chance his face will be paralyzed.
(Savannah Morning News - June 29, 2011)
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