Posted on 06/15/2006 6:38:54 PM PDT by SLB
A 9-year-old boy was attacked and bitten by a pit bull in the Morand Manor housing area of Fort Knox June 7.
Bryce Burkett was riding his bicycle with his 12-year-old brother Brandon near their home when the dog jumped its back yard fence and ran up to Bryce, knocked him down, and began biting his thigh and side, said Angela Burkett, the boys’ mother.
The attack happened between 6:15 and 6:30 that evening, Burkett said.
“My son (Brandon) came running up the street, yelling that (Bryce) had gotten bitten by a pit bull,” she said. “We all took off running.”
Nearby, Staff Sgt. Jawara Middleton had just gotten home from his son’s baseball game when he heard his mother-in-law shouting, “That kid needs help!”
“I looked down the street, and I saw this dog jumping at this kid,” Middleton said. “I ran down there, not even thinking of what kind of dog it was.”
Middleton said he became worried when he realized the dog was a pit bull.
“From what I understand, the dog was chewing (on Bryce), and working its way up,” Burkett said.
Middleton said he charged at the animal, shouting to try to scare it away from the boy.
“Once the dog saw me coming down there, he kind of backed off,” he said.
Middleton picked up Bryce’s bicycle and positioned it between the dog and the boy, and shouted for his wife to come help. She and Brandon helped Bryce inside, he said. Middleton had identified the animal as belonging to a neighbor, and using the bicycle, he forced it back to the back yard it had escaped from and into its cage.
Bryce, meanwhile, suffered scratches to his arms and bites to his thigh and side, including at least two deep puncture wounds.
The pit bull was about six months old and weighed between 70 and 80 pounds, Burkett said.
Military police responded to the 911 call, and Bryce was taken to Ireland Army Community Hospital where he was treated and released, Burkett said. The animal was moved off-post for quarantine immediately following the incident.
“It’s scary,” Burkett said. “I don’t think people really think about it until a tragedy happens, and because there wasn’t a death here, people aren’t going to take it seriously.”
It’s not the first dog attack on Fort Knox. Staff Sgt. Anthony Etheridge, then a drill sergeant with the 2nd Battalion, 81st Armor Regiment, was hospitalized after a Rottweiler attacked him as he was coming to the aid of a small child in the Pritchard Place housing area Feb. 14, 2005.
Of the 104 animal bite cases treated at Ireland Hospital in 2005, dogs were involved in 79, according to figures released by the hospital.
Although Knox has regulations designed to keep animals safely under control, some residents—including Burkett—are concerned that they aren’t being enforced.
“If you walk through the post right now, there are violations all throughout housing,” she said.
Loose dogs and cats roam the housing areas almost constantly, she said. But it’s the larger breeds, specifically pit bulls and Rottweilers, that cause her the most concern.
“They’re status dogs,” she said. “There’s no other use for that type of dog than for status and protection... and you don’t need protection on a military base.”
Jennifer Smith, a pit bull owner who also lives in Morand Manor, agreed that many people purchase pit bulls and Rottweilers for the wrong reasons.
“A lot of people get them to make them look tough, without researching the breed,” Smith said.
Her pit bull terrier, Apollo, was certified a “Canine Good Citizen” by the American Kennel Club in February.
Smith said that dog breeds aren’t the problem-it’s dog care.
“If people were made to have control over their dogs, we wouldn’t have these problems,” she said. “I’ve seen MPs pick up the same dog over and over.”
She worries that incidents such as the one involving Bryce Burkett will lead to what she considers an unfair ban on specific breeds; namely pit bulls and Rottweilers.
“With pit bull bans, responsible dog owners are the ones who are punished,” she said. “The bad dog owners will just move on to another breed, and the same problems will occur.”
Ireland’s statistics back up her claim. The 79 dog bites treated at the hospital in 2005 involved 32 breeds.
Smith said she and her family-and their two dogs-are in the process of moving off post in order to avoid conflict if such a ban should be put into effect on Fort Knox.
Burkett suggested that post units could conduct unannounced inspections of pet-owning Soldiers’ quarters to make sure they were observing established policies on pet control, similar to the way barracks and vehicle inspections are conducted.
“If you’re going to own an animal, you’ve got take care of it as you would your own child,” Burkett said. “You can’t just lock it up in a cage and put it in the back yard and expect that everything’s going to be all right.”
Officials at the Post Veterinary Clinic said they had heard no discussion on enacting any breed-specific ban for Fort Knox. But Burkett and Smith agree that the bite incident calls for some kind of action.
“I think they need to enforce the regulations we have,” Smith said.
“I don’t know what will happen as a result of this,” Burkett said. “I really, really hope that something changes... If they’re going to pass something, they’ve got to actively enforce it.”
The dogs have a place, but that place is not where they are liable to get out and create this type of havoc.
If nothing else, take every single one of them to Iraq and set them loose on the Al Kuckos over there. That'll be one way to put them to good use.
I hear the moose-limbs just soooo love dogs.
My dogs WILL bite and I have a sign that says so at the gate. They're just Jack Russells so people simply laugh it off. You would be amazed at how many people walk in without ringing the bell and get bitten.
Oh no....here comes the " It's the training and owners, its not my gentle pit bull."
Many dog breeds may bite...but pitt bulls are especially dangerous once they attack. Once they start charging people with criminal violations and jailing them for not being responsible, that will take care of this. No doubt the idiots that own this type of breed have no money so you can't sue them.
Disgusting.
I am not sure what the liability in quarters would be. When we lived in "housing" we did not have insurance as the government would reimburse us as long as we were not at fault in a loss. I doubt if these folks have any type of liability insurance so collecting would be iffy at best.
Yeah, they were bred to kill other dogs, not people. And no pit bull is that big at six months, or any other time in its life. Sounds to me like someone sold these idiots a "fad" dog, or a bluff dog, calling it a pit bull, and the owners bought it because they didn't bother to learn about the breed standard. Perhaps that is why so many of these man biters are HUGE. They're overpriced, badly bred mutts with the pit bull name. It's a shame because dogs like mine (43 pounds and extremely human friendly, just as the standard states)are getting a bad name because of these dopes and their thousand dollar "rare" pits.
I might be wrong, but I believe that pit bulls were forbidden on the bases we lived on. But we were Navy
Goldfinger is playing on AMC.
That just makes me mad when I read your post. I have a pupster and she is like my child. I know everyone doesn't feel that way about their doggie, but they should at least be responsible.
Ban them.
I don't think cats should be allowed to roam the neighborhood either. If you're going to have a cat in a neighborhood, get a litterbox and keep it inside.
Our neighbor's cats scratched our cars when they climbed on them, pooped in the flowerbeds, killed birds at our birdfeeders and were generally a nuisance, but our neighbor, like you, didn't see a problem.
Weird story. Where is the quote from the owner about how sweet of a dog it is?
If you were to ever do that on a military post, you would very quickly find out that the dog had more friends in high places than you do.
"Ban them"
who's gonna guard my meth lab???
I think the pitt bull owner with the CGC was a different person than the one whose dog attacked the kid. And pitt bulls are, by nature, very people friendly. You have to make a pitt bull into a monster, just like you would with any other dog breed. And most people probably could not identify a pit bull, either. And there are a lot of myths about pit bulls. First, they don't have locking jaws. Second, they don't have a strionger bite than other breeds of similar size. However, I do blame owners if they elect to have this poerful breed because when you own any poeerful breed, it is even more critical to make sure you have a well adjusted dog. No one cares if a jack russel or a chiuahua is psycho, but a big dog, that is a different story.
Once pits are banned, you can use rotties to guard your meth lab. Once they get banned, you can use dobies. Once they get banned, you can use German Shepherds. Once they get banned, you can use goldens.
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