It was a typical late Saturday morning on Hill Meade Lane in Lake Ridge. The street was busy with kids playing and neighbors taking care of weekend chores.
 |
| RIP Lassie |
But as Rea and Lassie took their usual lap around the street, three large dogs – a pit bull and two Rottweilers – rushed the pair and grabbed the small spaniel.
“They attacked my dog,” Rea said. “I was kicking the dogs heads, and I was scared because I thought they would attack me.”
Roger McDonald, who lives nearby, witnessed the attack as he was driving out of the neighborhood.
“One of the dogs had [Lassie] by the neck, and the other had her by her hind legs,” McDonald said. “It appeared the dog was already dead at that point.”
He said he saw about four to six other residents, as well as Rea, trying to get the large dogs off Lassie and away from Rea.
“Once the dogs saw that Lassie stopped crying in pain, they just let her go,” Rea said.
McDonald recalled seeing neighbors who tried to rescue Lassie give Rea the lifeless pet.
“They gave [Rea] the little dog, and he took off with it,” McDonald said.
The dogs, owned by Rea’s next-door neighbor Asaad Morman, were voluntarily surrendered and euthanized soon after the attack, said Capt. Dawn Harman,who heads Prince William Animal Control.
But neighbors said the three dogs had been terrorizing the neighborhood from the time their owner moved in a year and a half before. The dogs lived in a tiny backyard and often escaped the fence, charging neighborhood pets and residents, according to neighbors.
InsideNoVA.com reached Morman by phone on Monday, but he hung up when asked for his side of the story.
Harman, along with Chief Deputy Animal Warden Pauline Shatswell and Prince William police Lt. Kevin Brown, met with more than 20 concerned Hill Meade Lane residents last Thursday night at neighborhood meeting across the street from the scene of the attack on Lassie.
Although emotions at times ran high, residents’ concerns were mainly focused on keeping their neighborhood safe.
Neighbors said they had called Animal Control many times in reference to Morman’s dogs, fearing something like the Jan. 28 incident – or worse – would eventually happen.
Harman said she personally went through records and only found a few relevant calls, but conceded that the county’s computer-aided dispatch system may have masked how many complaints were made.
Issues such as incident calls being recorded under the caller’s address, and not the offender’s address, which could be on different streets, might have made it difficult for officials to link two calls together, she said.
Morman was convicted in October on three misdemeanor charges of letting his dogs run at large, court records stated.
Another issue of dissention at the meeting were two Virginia laws – the dangerous and vicious dog laws. An unprovoked attack or injury on a person or the killing of a companion pet – as in the case of Lassie – could lead a judge in court to deem the offending dog as ‘dangerous’, imposing restrictions on the dog owner such as fencing and the requirement of a muzzle to be worn in public, Shatswell said.
The vicious dog law, which could be seen as a ‘step up’, is declared on a dog if it kills, or significantly injures, a human, Shatswell said. A dangerous dog killing a second dog or committing another violation could also upgrade the dog to being declared vicious in court, officials said.
Morman’s dogs were not declared dangerous prior to Lassie’s death, officials said.
Although McDonald said he was glad authorities attended the neighborhood meeting, he was still disappointed.
“I understand the limitations and why they are there,” he said. “But I’m surprised that more couldn’t be done toward repeat offenders.”
Residents also asked Harman if Morman would be allowed to own dogs again.
She said officials couldn’t prevent Morman from owning pets in the future, outside of being charged with animal cruelty, citing state law.
Residents also questioned authorities’ response to the attack.
It took Animal Control 20 minutes to arrive on the scene, Harman said. Police came soon afterward. Meanwhile, the pit bull and Rottweilers remained at large.
Harman sourced the delay to human error.
“The [emergency call taker] didn’t pick up on the serious nature of the call, and therefore it wasn’t dispatched in a serious fashion,” she said. Dispatchers got more emergency calls and subsequently called police, Harman said.
Brown said that police, who should’ve been dispatched concurrently with Animal Control, would have been there “within minutes” had the call been dispatched following department guidelines.
Prince William police Chief Charlie T. Deane is looking into the incident and will issue administrative action if any wrongdoing is found, Harman said.
Rea, who lost his wife a few years ago to cancer, said that it has been “very, very terrible” in his family since Lassie’s death.
“This is my dog—this is my family,” he said.
He said he hopes that Lassie’s death will prompt others in Prince William County to “do everything they need” to protect their pets and children.
(InsideNova - Feb 6, 2012)
