Yes, I admit I don’t know. The deceased and her friend apparently refer to them as pit bulls, and they kind of look like at the very least they could be pit mixes.
I personally think they are potentially dangerous for un-trained people to own, and the problem (as another poster said) is that for every dedicated and trained person who owns them and can control them, there are probably ten times that number who buy them as a symbol, or because they heard they are good protectors without either understanding or accepting the responsibility for owning them.
I think if you are knowledgable and accept the responsibility of owning them and keeping them in line while knowing the potential hazard, that is probably okay to me, but...there is no way to determine who is and who isn’t responsible or qualified.
Just my opinion.
One thing that is wrong with them is that people back-yard breed them with no care to the genetics and breeding out the bad parts, like extreme aggression. Breeders of all kinds are messing a lot of dogs up, not just Pits.
Pits are extremely dog aggressive and are bred that way because they used them to fight for so many years. They go crazy when that fight instinct kicks in. The worst thing a person can do is try to break up a fight.
IMO, most of the Pits are too far gone to ever be safe with most people. Years and years ago before they started breeding them to fight, they might have made good pets and probably were, a long time ago. Too many years of breeding aggressive dogs to aggressive dogs has made most of them irredeemable.
Another problem is the majority of people that own them. There are a few nice families that own them but most I see are tattooed skinhead types or blacks dripping with chains and gang tats.