Monticello Police said the incident happened Wednesday morning. All parties involved agree on that detail, but they have different stories on what exactly happened. Na'torial Ware's mom says her 5-year-old daughter was heading to her school bus when their neighbor's pit bull mauled her.
"I was thinking he wasn't going to stop biting me," the girl says.
Na'toria's older brother was also nearby and said the dog started dragging his sister, so he called their mom.
"It's crazy, the owner's wife just stood there at her back door and just watched the dog bit my baby," Mesheka Ware, Na'toria's mother, said.
The dog's owner, Patrick Moore, had an explanation for why his wife didn't do more to control the situation.
"My wife is nine months pregnant," Moore said. "There's not much she could do, but she did pull a deep freezer back and opened the door and called the dog off her. I heard her screaming at the dog telling it to stop, stop. I left work, came directly here [home] and police and everyone was outside."
Investigators said there are conflicting stories about the pit bull being chained to a boat at the house.
The Wares say the dog wasn't chained, while Moore said police witnessed the owners getting tools to get the chain off the dog.
"We used pliers to get him off his collar, and to me that's not something you couldn't do in a two minute time frame," Monticello Police Chief Eddy Deaton said, confirming that thinks the dog was chained at the time of the incident.
The Moores have three other dogs, including another pit bull. This was the second time this particular dog has bitten someone; they plan to get rid of his dogs to prevent any more attacks. Authorities have the pit bull that attacked in their custody and will decide what to do with him next week.
Na'toria has a broken bone in her ankle and bit marks along her lower leg and thigh. Police say Moore administered rabies shots to his dogs on his own, but Moore was cited for not having a veterinarian do it, which state law requires.
(Today's THV - Nov 30, 2012)
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