The problem's more the combination of the owner and the breed than just the breed itself. A dog like that Presa is going to take a HUGE amount of socialization, constant supervision, and careful handling. There are some people out there that can handle it and turn a Presa into a good pet, but probably not that many.
My in-laws own three Hungarian Kuvasz, which are European sheep guard dogs (not herd dogs). They're big (males go about 90-110 pounds), and while they're not known for aggressiveness like bull terriers or Presas, they're VERY oriented toward their "pack" and their territory--they've got 600 years of livestock-guard breeding in their veins. So they're very smart and independent, which makes them a challenge to train and socialize.
Their youngest, a 75-pound female, was a holy terror when they first got her. It's taken them FOUR YEARS to socialize that dog to the point where she's reasonably good to take on a walk without going after another animal, and where she won't go nuts on people when they come over to visit. She's accepted the whole extended family as part of her "pack" now, and she's the sweetest dog I've ever seen now...to us. And even then they are very careful with her--she never goes off-leash, she's always closely supervised, and when my wife and infant daughter went down to visit, there were always adults nearby--as in, within grabbing distance, or with a hand on her collar or fur--when the dog and the baby were in the same room. They're very skilled at handling Kuvasz. If Shari (the dog) had ended up with an inexperienced or incompetent family, I guarantee you she'd be dead right now, either at the hands of another dog, in front of a car, or euthanized.
You can make any dog into a mean dog. And you can make (virtually) any dog into a nice dog. The problems arise when people who don't know what they're doing get a high-maintenance, dominance-oriented dog like a Presa and the dog ends up being a 125-pound time bomb. The dog's being a dog. It's the owners that are the problem.
}:-)4
Interesting story. I don’t have any experience in the area. Generally, I think people should be free to own any animal as long as they’re bonded, acting responsibly and healed criminally liable for anything their exotic pet does (as if they did it themselves). In this case, the dog should have been removed from the family after the first or second infraction.