"She deserves the biggest reward," Lamar McThay Jr. said. "She fought for her life."
City officials at a commission meeting Tuesday recognized Tayla Johnson's rescuers.
Two neighbors beat the dog with baseball bats, unsuccessfully trying to get it to let go of Johnson.
When that didn’t work investigators said another neighbor came over and shot the dog in the leg with his 9mm handgun. The dog continued its attack so the neighbor shot it four times before shooting it point blank in the head and killing it.
Aiming wasn't easy, Negrin said; the dog was still clamped on the girl's face.
McThay and another neighbor then took care of the girl's wounds until paramedics arrived.
"It's very brave, taking on a pit bull," Mayor Peggy Noland told them. "I thank you for stepping up to the plate."
"The dog was locked onto this child's face and wouldn't let go," said Broward Sheriff District Chief Pete Sudler. "He wanted to kill her," Negrin said.
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Johnson, who was not at the meeting, is an eighth-grader at Deerfield Beach Middle School. She was trying to get the black and white pit bull MJ into a bathroom at her Southwest 10th Terrace home when it began "acting strange", jumping around and biting her on her arms and face.
Her brother Kevin Johnson and cousin Kurtis Santiago came home and became concerned when she didn't answer the door to let them in. Her brother told deputies he saw her being attacked by their Pit Bull when he looked through a window.
The two then got in through a back door but were unable to get the dog to stop biting her, despite both boys beating it with keys and a broomstick, they told deputies.
Santiago ran outside and called to neighbors.
Sammie Huggins and Winfred Davenport arrived with bats and "wailed on the dog," Huggins said, but it would not let go.
LaJayron Negrin used his gun to shoot the dog. Negrin said he avoided shooting the dog in the head and killing it until he had no choice.
The neighbors said they did what they had to do.
"All you [saw] was this dog over her, had her face in his jaws and he was just shaking her," Huggins said. "When I saw the dog on her like that, something got in me and the fear left me."
After the dog was killed, the neighbors took the girl outside, where Myra Velez and McThay tended to her until paramedics arrived.
"She came out and she said, 'I don't want to die. Am I going to make it?'" Velez said.
“She had a probably a four or five inch gash in her face that you could see through to her gumline.”
She was expected to be hospitalized for several weeks and require reconstructive surgery.
SURPRISED OWNER
Broward County Sheriff's Deputies said it was not clear what caused Tayla Johnson's Pit Bull named MJ to suddenly and relentlessly attack her. She's known the dog since she was born.
The city recognized seven people: Tayla Johnson's brother and cousin; Davenport, a sanitation supervisor for Boca Raton; Negrin and Huggins, who are Deerfield Beach city employees; McThay, a Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue paramedic, and Velez, who works for IKON Office Solutions in Sunrise.
(Sun Sentinel - October 19, 2011)
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