Police: Leesburg Man Mauled, Killed by 2 Pit Bulls

LEESBURG, Va. - Leesburg Police confirm a 20-year-old resident and another dog were killed by a family member's two pit bulls.

Carter Delaney was killed by his brother's young pit bulls and neighbors say his grandfather made the disturbing discovery in the 100 block of Plaza Street NE shortly before 2 p.m. Monday.

"We were really saddened by it. Me and my kids are going to come out and put something down," said neighbor Doodie Summers.

Neighbors who lived near the Leesburg home where Delaney was mauled to death by two family pit bulls were shocked. "Oh my God, it is a true family tragedy," said neighbor Joe Neville.

Leesburg Police released the medical examiner's preliminary autopsy findings and said Delaney's body was covered with puncture wounds - dog bites. There was a deadly wound around his neck, cutting off blood to his brain.

The report has lead detectives to conclude two 4-year-old pit bulls, that were staying at the home, attacked and killed Delaney. Another dog, a small pug mix was also found dead.

Neighbors speculate if Delaney was trying to protect the smaller dog, his mother's pet, when the pit bulls turned violent.

"Did the dogs attack the small dog? Did the male try to intervene on some level? [It's being] treated officially as a suspicious death," said Officer Chris Jones of the Leesburg Police Department.

Delaney was home alone with the dogs. Officials say the two American pit bulls were registered and licensed to his brother. The dogs are now quarantined at the Loudoun County (web | news) Animal Shelter pending the investigation.

Long time neighbors say Delaney was well-known and well liked. Some neighbors witnessed the grandfather's arrival at the disturbing discovery and the family's race to the home.

"Our neighbors took care of the grandfather and hopefully... he was comforted," said neighbor Joe Neville.

A family friend who didn't want to show her face on camera said they had no idea anything like this could ever happen. "There can be pit bulls that are very well behaved. But you never know, you never know when they're going to snap. You never know when that's going to happen. And it was just a sad situation," she said.

It’s a very sad thing to see a life taken. It’s worse that it could have been prevented.

Blue Jays, you are absolutely right. But you are barking up the wrong tree here. People aren’t interested in facts. They much prefer talking trash about the subject and believing that news reports are the best form of research. These guys don’t think so:

http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf

“....People KNOW that breed has the greatest potential to be a lethal weapon, yet they keep them in a family setting...”

People who KNOW this are the same type that KNEW the world was flat. There are over 56 breeds of dog responsible for human fatalities in the world (that have been reported- some countries do not document these things, and even in the U.S., about 30% of all dog-bite-related fatalities involve a dog of unknown breed, which means they don’t get used in studies based on breed. That also means that those dogs were most likely running loose with no owner in sight, or were never seen by anyone but the deceased, which still boils down to owner responsibility.)

In every single instance where a human is killed by a dog, these factors are always present, no matter the breed of dog involved. The quicker people start realizing this, the more likely we are to create laws that actually address the real issue (owner responsibility and socio-economic issues are the big ones in both the gun and dog problems). In the cities, states, and countries that have studied the results of their breed bans, the vast majority of them had either no change in the amount of attacks and deaths, or an increase. In places where existing laws were better enforced, attacks decreased (see Calgary-their laws have made such a huge impact on dog bites, all without banning any breed of dog).

It’s pretty obvious from reading about political issues that the media will say whatever they can to get ratings, and the only way to know what’s going on for sure is to do your own research. So why is it so hard to understand that this situation is the same? I understand that when someone dies the natural reaction is sadness and anger, but moving on from that into rational thought to prevent the tragedy from happening again (death from an unfortunate situation involving a dog, not from a specific breed of dog) is the best way to change things for the better.

Since pit bulls were never bred to be human aggressive or to guard, they are far inferior to other breeds better suited mentally for the job. Pit bulls are often stolen because they are not instinctively suspicious, as many guardian breeds are. In many instances, people who have more than a couple of pit bulls (breeders, good or bad) will have another breed of dog to guard them (like american bulldogs, german shepherds, etc.). I would pick one of those dogs over a pit bull any day of the week if I needed a dog willing to bite a person.

For all the millions of idiots out there wanting their pit bull to be that kind of dog, it’s a credit to the breed that all the training and abuse the dogs endure cannot make them into man-killers. It seems that title always goes to dogs that are running loose, chained, intact, or ignored, and that goes for every breed that has taken a human life. Just think about the sheer number of these dogs owned by irresponsible, ignorant people that actually WANT a bad dog, and compare that to the percentage of them that have taken a life. It’s plain to see that the numbers do not complement each other, which is a pretty big sign that the breed in this situation has far less to do with the issue than the person owning it.

According to several reports, the neighbors said these dogs were “kept away from people” which to me either means they knew the dogs were human aggressive, or they were just extremely under-socialized. I don’t believe the people who owned them were training them to fight or guard, but they weren’t the family dogs they were made out to be.

Apparently, from what police have been reported to say, the dogs were not supposed to be indoors. They were being kept outside, away from people, and how they ended up inside is anyone’s guess. I think the people shouldn’t have had dogs at all if they thought keeping them away from people was the right thing to do. Even if they thought they were protecting people from dogs they knew weren’t right, they were still in the wrong. They should have had the dogs euthanized if they were aggressive towards people. If they were just keeping them away from people because they were lazy or preferred having a lawn ornament, or the dogs got big and they didn’t want to deal with them anymore, they were being extremely irresponsible with them.

Here’s a comment made by a neighbor on one of the news sites:

“These dogs had horrible temperaments. They NEVER should have been bred. This shouldn’t become a pit bull thing. Those dogs were treated like garbage, and acted how they were kept.

Posted by: Leesburg local | August 12, 2009 at 12:21 AM “

Dogs form packs, and if they were a breeding pair, that makes it that much worse that the dogs weren’t cared for properly. The majority of deaths involve intact dogs, and the likelihood that aggressive behavior will be present is multiplied if the female is in heat or the dogs are around the scent.

Dogs don’t have to be trained or bred for aggression to be involved in accidents like this. Other breeds that have killed people have been considered rarities, or people make excuses for them, saying they were somehow provoked. Either way, it is unacceptable, regardless of how the dog views it. The fact is, dog bite related fatalities are extremely rare in the first place. Considering the population of these dogs right now and the fact that the average number of fatalities has not risen since they became popular (some years are worse than others but overall there has not been an increase on average since the numbers have been compiled), it seems likely that if they are banned, the average will continue to stay the same, as it was before they came along.

Calgary’s laws have been the only success in taking down dog attack numbers, and they didn’t ban any breeds. The cities, states, and countries that have banned breeds and bothered to study the results have found that either the numbers stay the same or rise. Calgary works because they address the responsibility of the owners.

A lot of people view the dogs that way, unfortunately. They have this reputation for being supernaturally strong, and just plain crazy. However, they are just another breed of dog that needs a job. Having worked with GSD and Malinois, I see the parallels between the breeds. The best working dogs are tired dogs, and the same goes for apbt, who were indeed bred for a job, however cruel it was. They were also farm dogs and catch dogs, though, as well as family dogs, but are most well-known for the period of time they were used in dog fights.

I wouldn’t recommend everyone have one, much like Malinois or Caucasian Ovcharkas, and I certainly wouldn’t say that I trust them around babies. But I don’t trust any dog around babies, or cats, or each other because they’re dogs. Call me paranoid, but I grew up with a lab that was unpredictable and vicious around certain dogs. She was very sweet and loving, but we found out the hard way just how quick a dog can decide to attack and go for it before you can even blink an eye.

I have been researching these stories for years, and when I started, I viewed them the same as you. I had a friend who had four pit bulls. I told him he was asking for it, and he calmly told me to do some research to prove it. I did, and at first, all I got was media reports which further reinforced my beliefs. Then, I started looking at the reports, and then seeing what animal control and neighbors said after the first stories aired. Many times, what happened on the news was far different from what actually happened. Sometimes, animal control would come back and say the dog involved was another breed entirely. A lot of animal control reports came back saying the dog had a history already, and nothing was done about it. Then I looked into how many of them were intact, how many were chained up, how many were in bad neighborhoods, and how many were owned by people that claimed the dogs were loved family members, yet the dog was not allowed inside (but it could run the neighborhood).

After that, I looked at the CDC study everyone always quotes from. At first, I thought the table showing how many pit bulls had taken lives was pretty good proof for my poor friend. Then I read the whole thing, and realized that they had actually stopped calculating deaths because their source information was admittedly from media reports, and they stated that the media over-reports on breeds they deem more newsworthy, and tend to call a dog a pit bull before animal control can even assess the dog’s breed. What’s worse, they have admitted to turning down people’s stories that don’t involve a breed of dog they consider “newsworthy”. It isn’t their fault, as they are a business, not a charity. But people always seem to think of them as some sort of authority.

But the CDC study went on to say that about 30% of dog related deaths could not even be used because the breed of dog was not known. That’s a pretty big chunk to be left out. One of their biggest findings, and one that really hit home for me, was that the biggest pattern they found in all the cases where the history of the care of the dog was available, was how the dog was raised. A large percentage were intact male dogs. Then there were breeding pairs and packs, then chained dogs, then dogs running loose, and this was for all dog breeds in the study. It is very rare to have a single neutered dog that is well-socialized and indoors create a problem.

After that, I found the American Temperament Test Society, an organization that tests dogs on unprovoked aggression. I found that the apbt had a higher passing score than the average for all breeds, and that certain breeds people consider very friendly didn’t do nearly as well as I thought.

And it goes on and on. I still am finding things out to this day, 14 years later, that I didn’t know about. I am always willing to listen to someone whose opinion is different than my own, because I cannot expect to grow if I refuse more information. I did apologize to my friend, and started volunteering at animal shelters. I found a lot of dogs there that I didn’t even know were pit bulls, and they were mostly very friendly, happy dogs that needed a lot of exercise. The ones that were iffy had always come from the streets, beaten up and starved. Even some of those were extremely friendly and trusting.

One day, after college and settling down, I decided to adopt one, and she turned into the dog I judge all others by. She was gentle with my cats, children, and loved everyone she met. She didn’t like pugs, but all other dogs were her friends. She was obedient, happy, and goofy, and she lived a long, normal doggy life. I now have another one that was a rescue and she is totally different. She’s very affectionate, but she’s scared of men and skateboards. She loves cats and children, and adores her beat-up basketball that she chases around with her nose. She’s a normal, happy dog. I have had labs, GSD, Dobies, chihuahua, keeshond, and boxers (all fosters) and never have I bonded so well than with my apbt. The GSD came really close, but was a little more independent, although extremely obedient.

I can understand if you personally don’t like them. No one can tell you what to like. I thought they were ugly and vicious before I started trying to prove my friend wrong. Now I really enjoy them, and can’t imagine why anyone would dislike them if they met a well-bred, responsibly-owned one.

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