FLORIDA -- A 13-year-old girl survived a mauling by her pit bull Monday night thanks to neighbors who had to shoot the dog dead after futilely beating it with bats to get it to let go of her face.
Tayla Johnson told deputies she was trying to put her black-and-white pit bull "MJ" in the bathroom when it began "acting strange," jumping around and biting her arms and face.
Johnson, who was home alone, said she was unable to get the dog off of her, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office report.
Her brother, Kevin Johnson, 17, and cousin, Kurtis Santiago, 16, became concerned when they got home from a store and the girl didn't open the door for them. Her brother told deputies he looked in a bedroom window and saw her trying to scream as the dog locked its jaws on her face.
Kevin Johnson and Santiago got into the house and tried to get MJ off of her by hitting it with keys and a broomstick, but the dog wouldn't let go, according to the report.
Santiago ran for help.
Winfred Davenport, who lives across from the home on Southwest 10th Terrace, came with a wooden bat. Sammie Huggins brought an aluminum one.
"We had bats and we were beating on the dog and the dog wouldn't let go," said Davenport, a sanitation supervisor for Boca Raton.
They realized any help was going to be up to neighbor LaJayron Negrin, who had come into the house with his 9mm P95 Ruger.
Aiming wasn't easy, Negrin said. The dog was still clamped on the girl's face.
"I shot him like three or four times in the side and once in the head," said Negrin, who has a concealed weapons permit. "I didn't want to kill the dog. I just wanted him to let her go."
The dog did let go and looked up, for just a moment. Then he lunged again.
"He was actually trying to go back after the girl and that's when I had to put it down," shooting it in the head at an angle to avoid hitting Tayla Johnson, said Negrin, a sanitation worker for Deerfield Beach. Deputies recovered five casings at the scene.
While Negrin didn't want to kill the dog, a Broward County law approved this year imposes a death sentence on any dog that maims a human. Miami-Dade County has a ban on pit bulls, the only county in the state allowed to do so.
[Yes, and they have no problem dumping them into surrounding counties to be able to maim and kill pets and the residents in those counties.]
After Negrin killed the dog, he said the neighbors carried the girl out to the front yard where another neighbor, paramedic Lamar McThay, helped her until fire-rescue arrived.
"We had to pick her up and take her outside," Negrin said. "She couldn't move. We were still so close to the dog and it was a horrific sight."
Broward Sheriff District Chief Pete Sudler said the girl is recovering. Luckily, he said, she wasn't hit by any of the bullets.
"They did what they had to do," Sudler said. "The dog was locked onto this child and wouldn't let go."
SURPRISED OWNER
Tayla has known MJ the Pit Bull all her life. They say they have "no idea" what triggered their beloved Pit Bull to try to kill her.
She was taken to North Broward Medical Center, where she was admitted. Negrin said she was expected to be in the hospital several weeks and would need reconstructive surgery.
"He wanted to kill her," Negrin said. "I wouldn't ever want to imagine that [happening to me]."
(Sun Sentinel - Oct 5, 2011)
