“In our court, we decided that a pit bull was more important than a 74-year-old man who’s been hurt,” Susanne Reynolds, a former longtime Lynn Public Schools teacher, said Wednesday of her injured husband, Jack, a retired Lynn principal.
“I had the leashed dog. It came on my property and did damage. If it were a human being, it would have been arrested.”
Meanwhile, the city plans to appeal the decision by Lynn District Court Clerk Magistrate Stephen Borelli.
“There were no reasons given for ruling,” city attorney Vin Phelan said Thursday. “Typically we don’t lose these.”
A woman who answered the door at the pit bull owner’s home declined to comment Wednesday. Nor could attorney Stephen Wise, who represented the owner, be reached Thursday. Borelli could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Susanne and Jack Reynolds said Wednesday that they and their 14-pound shih tzu, Oreo, were getting into their car at noon on May 12 to put flowers on their parents’ graves for Mother’s Day.
Jack Reynolds said he opened the back door when the neighbor’s pit bull ran down their driveway, jumped into the back seat of the car and began attacking Oreo.
Jack Reynolds said he threw both of his arms around the pit bull’s neck and used his body weight to hold the dog, which he estimated weighed between 70 to 90 pounds, for nearly half an hour as they waited for police to arrive. Susanne Reynolds was meanwhile screaming for help.
“I ran across the street and heard Susanne outside screaming ‘my husband’s dead,’” neighbor Jannel Vickers recalled. “She told me, ‘My husband’s dead in the car,’ and he was motionless trying to hold the dog. Oreo looked at me and his eye was hanging out.”
Jack went to a hospital in an ambulance for treatment of his injuries — a picture the Reynolds provided showed his arm had scratches and punctures on the inside of his arm. Susanne Reynolds accompanied him, while neighbors took Oreo to the veterinarian’s office.
Susanne Reynolds said the veterinarian had to rebuild Oreo’s face, wire the dog’s jaw and are trying to save some of the dog’s teeth.
The veterinary team all stayed late at the clinic to get the job done, and the veterinarian even took the dog home overnight to stay with her, Susanne Reynolds said. Susanne Reynolds said she has not calculated the final cost involved as some of the veterinary team volunteered to work overtime.
Animal Control Officer Kevin Farnsworth requested that the pit bull, named Bella, be banned forever from the City of Lynn and be killed if found in the city, citing Massachusetts law on dogs “of vicious disposition.”
“It is my opinion that this dog is definitely a public nuisance and causes a dangerous situation to exist,” Farnsworth wrote in a May 21 letter to Deputy Police Chief Kenneth Santoro.
On July 6, both Jack and Susanne Reynolds received subpoenas to appear as witnesses for the owners of the pit bull in a clerk magistrate’s hearing, they said. The hearing was an appeal of the banishment order, according to court documents.
Jack Reynolds went to the hospital the next day with heart problems, he said, was hospitalized until July 12 and now requires oxygen. Susanne attended the hearing with Phelan.
She said it lasted more than 3½ hours, and a lawyer from Florida who specialized in animal rights cases represented the dog’s owner. She said the defense attorney “tore apart the city ordinance” about removing dogs from the city, repeatedly asking for a definition of a “vicious animal.”
[Let's get real. This is not an attorney who specializes in animal rights cases. It is an attorney who defends pit bulls.]
The Reynolds had not heard any result from the hearing, so they called Farnsworth Tuesday. He told them Borelli had ruled in favor of the dog owners.
“I’ve never been so upset in my whole life,” Susanne Reynolds said. “I live on a street that I’m petrified to live on … To us it’s a horror story.”
Vickers said she was also scared of the pit bull. She said she no longer walks past the house when she takes Lady, her chihuahua-dachshund mix, out for a walk.
“Truthfully, I’m terrified,” she said. She showed an application for a permit to carry mace and said “this is what I did when I found out” the dog was staying in the neighborhood.
“It’s funny, because I used to have a big dog and it was the sweetest thing,” she said. Her former dog would never attack anyone, she said, “but if she did, it wouldn’t be living in this house anymore.”
Nevertheless, she said that she felt bad for the pit bull’s owners, who she described as “very nice people.”
“I love my dog and I’m sure they love their dog too,” Vickers said. But she noted that the pit bull had impacted her life and the Reynolds’ lives.
“Ever since that day, we are terrified to walk on our own street and I think that’s wrong,” Vickers said.
Susanne Reynolds said Wednesday the family is filing a civil suit against the dog owners.
“This wasn’t a simple dog bite, it was a dog jumping into a car and attacking,” said Attorney Erin Doherty Turcotte, who is representing the Reynolds family in the civil suit. “If that’s not enough to warrant a menace, I don’t know what is.”
Informed Thursday that the city was appealing the magistrate’s ruling, Jack Reynolds left a message saying he was “100 percent in favor of (appealing). I’d like to thank the attorney who is going to appeal, it should be (appealed).”
The appeal is scheduled for Oct. 9, according to court documents. Meanwhile, Phelan said Bella the pit bull must be restrained and muzzled when outside.
(WPTV - Sept 7, 2012)
