One man was sure he would’ve been attacked if he hadn’t been able to hold the dogs off with a rake.
One man drew an AR-15 and was close to shooting. Two others pulled knives when they were confronted by the animals.
“I’d have gutted that dog if he had charged me,” Sammy Allen said.
Is that enough to prove Daniels knew the dogs were dangerous?
That’s what a jury will have to determine.
“What did Edward Daniels know?” Kevin Carlisle asked jurors during his opening statement Wednesday morning. “Because that’s what this case is about.”
Carlisle focused most of the questioning during his cross-examinations Wednesday not on the April 2 attack that killed 7-year-old Tyler Jett, who lived across Kelly Court from Daniels, but on an incident five days earlier when the two dogs got loose and behaved aggressively toward several neighbors, including Jett’s stepfather.
Carlisle asked the neighbors what they told Daniels after the confrontations.
“They’re going to kill a kid,” Stanlee Himbaugh testified to telling Daniels on March 28. Himbaugh didn’t mention that warning when he gave a statement to law enforcement after Jett was attacked.
When Bay County Animal Control arrived on March 28, Daniels refused to sign a citation for allowing his dogs to run loose. Animal control had to call the sheriff’s office to back them up because Daniels was confrontational, and Daniels’ mother eventually signed the citation.
“Either sign the citation or get rid of the damn dogs,” she told her son, according to testimony from John Rosin with animal control.
Adolph Williams testified that he drove his truck onto Daniels’ lawn and cussed him after one of the dogs threatened him one night. He said he told Daniels he would hurt Fat Boy and M.J. if Daniels didn’t come get them. While he didn’t expressly tell Daniels the dogs were dangerous and likely to kill someone, he felt confident at the time that his tone and use of profanity that night conveyed the message.
The neighbors painted Daniels as nonchalant and unconcerned, even when they threatened to kill the dogs if they got loose again. Daniels told Shannon Washington to “mind his own damn business” after he told Daniels to keep his dogs on a leash; Daniels said what his dogs did when he wasn’t around was out of his control, Washington told the jury.
Even when Bay County Animal Control Officer Matthew Bland told Daniels that his dogs had mauled Jett and the boy’s heart stopped beating, Daniels showed no reaction. Bland didn’t know how Daniels would typically respond to horrific news, he admitted in response to question from Carlisle.
Rather than compassion for his neighbor, Daniels reacted by washing the blood and human tissue from his dog, prosecutor Larry Basford said in his opening statement.
Bland and a crime scene investigator found blood and tissue on Daniels’ back porch. They showed photos of a fence in disrepair that surrounds the yard. There were large gaps between the boards and deep holes near the base of the 6-foot privacy fence.
Daniels has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He will have an opportunity to call his witnesses after the prosecution rests.
His trial will continue, and possibly conclude, Thursday, Judge James Fensom said. Fensom could sentence Daniels to up to 15 years if he’s convicted.
An earlier version of this story is posted below:
Opening statements and testimony were given Wednesday morning in Edward Daniels manslaughter trail.
Daniels, 21, is charged with manslaughter and tampering with evidence in the death of 7-year-old Tyler Jett. Daniels is accused of letting his dogs, Fat Boy and M.J., get free April 2. Tyler had just gotten off the school bus and was playing in his front yard when the dogs attacked him, tearing away flesh from his scalp and puncturing his carotid artery. He died of his injuries five days later at a Pensacola hospital.
In his opening statement Prosecutor Larry Basford described Tyler Jett's “innocent and fatal mistake” as playing outside. He added that Daniels knew or should have known the dogs were dangerous and could kill. However, in Public Defender Kevin Carlisle ’s opening statement he refuted that claim.
“These two dogs had never bitten a human being,” before they killed Tyler , Carlisle says.
Basford put several of Daniel’s neighbors on the stand who said the dogs had attempted to attack them including one neighbor who said he specifically warned Daniels about what could happen.
“They're gonna kill a kid,” he recalled saying.
(The News Herald - August 28, 2013)
Earlier:
ReplyDeletetoo bad neighbors didnt take care of those dogs proactively .