Woman mauled by home-invading pit bulls

KING5 ^ | 8/21-07 | KING5.com Staff

[SIDENET]

Anyway, one night said cat decided to explore the house and at 3 a.m. curled up in bed with one of the owners, scaring her to death.

LOL. That would be WEIRD to wake up and find some stange cat curled up next to you on the bed.

"Honey, I think we just got a new pet."

[Ditter]

We stayed in a very old (but nice and expensive) hotel in New Orleans French Quarter that came with a cat. We tried to put it out but it scratched at the door and meowed until we let it back in. The next morning it asked to get out.

[SIDENET]

I once stayed at a friend's house and slept on a guest bed that his big, mean tomcat usually slept on. I was warned that the cat bit and scratched and generally had one hell of a mean streak. Of course, the cat somehow got into the room when I was trying to go to sleep.

Anyway, the cat absolutely loved me and curled up next to my chest where it remained for the rest of the night. Until it fell asleep, it purred loudly and knitted on my shirt. The next day, I told my friend that his cat liked me, and he barely believed it.

I'm just one of those people that cats instinctively like.

[Ditter]

That wasn’t a bad kitty, he just needed a friend.

[kanawa]

Highlighting added with comment at the end...

Slanesville, WV (PRWEB) August 25, 2007 -- A study by the National Canine Research Council reveals biased reporting by the media, its devastating consequences for dogs and the toll it takes on public safety.

Consider how the media reported four incidents that happened between August 18th and August 21st:

August 18, 2007 -
A Labrador mix attacked a 70-year-old man sending him to the hospital in critical condition. Police officers arrived at the scene and the dog was shot after charging the officers.

This incident was reported in ONE (1) article and only in the local paper.

August 19, 2007 -
A 16-month old child received fatal head and neck injuries after being attacked by a mixed breed dog.

This attack was reported TWO (2) times by the local paper only.

August 20, 2007 -
A 6-year-old boy is hospitalized after having his ear torn off and receiving severe bites to the head by a medium-sized mixed breed dog.

This attack was reported in ONE (1) article and only in the local paper.

August 21, 2007 -
A 59-year-old woman was attacked in her home by two Pit bulls and was hospitalized with severe injuries.

This attack was reported in over two hundred and thirty (230) articles in national and international newspapers, as well as major television news networks, including CNN, MSNBC and FOX.

"Clearly a fatal attack by an unremarkable breed is not nearly as newsworthy as a non-fatal attack by a Pit bull," says Karen Delise, researcher for the National Canine Research Council.

The National Canine Research Council reports that people routinely cite media coverage as "proof" that pit bulls are more dangerous than other dogs. Delise says costly and ineffective public policy decisions are being made on the basis of such "proof". While this biased reporting is not only lethal to an entire population of dogs; sensationalized media coverage endangers the public by misleading them about the real factors in canine aggression.

About The National Canine Research Council
The National Canine Research Council investigates all reported cases of fatal dog attacks in the United States. Serious analysis and discussion of canine aggression cannot be conducted from information acquired from media sources.

---

I have search bots working to return any reports of fatal dogs attacks and when I received this press release today I was taken aback, I had received nothing prior to this about the 16 month old child being killed.

The release doesn't give a link to the occurrence and I hesitated to post about it without more information.

I emailed Karen Delise a researcher at the NCRC and author of the book, "Fatal Dog Attacks" (an excellent resource that I have in my library)
and was pleasantly surprised when she quickly replied.
Here is one of the two links mentioned to the fatal dog attack...
http://www.newschannel9.com/articles/county_14928___article.html/stray_animal.html

[kanawa]

"But there is one thing in the US of A that's hard to argue with and that is the Insurance Industry, God love'em. Emergency Room Docs, Police Departments. They know the score."

Be careful...insurance companies refusing to insure gun owners or charging exorbitant premiums, government demanding you have insurance, gun dealers required to see prove of insurance before selling... and the docs and cops cracking the Champagne. Could never happen...right?

Insurance, Life Expectancy and the Cost of Firearm Deaths in the U.S.
Published: June 15, 2005 in Knowledge@Wharton

Despite its status as an advanced industrial nation, the United States has some unusual characteristics. For example, while its health care system is the most expensive in the world, its citizens are neither healthier nor do they live longer than citizens in other countries. In addition, while the U.S. is considered among the safest countries, deaths from gunshot wounds are staggeringly high. In 2000, the U.S. recorded close to 11,000 firearm homicides and more than 16,000 firearm suicides. The European Union -- an area with a population approximately 25% higher than that of the U.S. -- reported fewer than 1,300 firearm homicides for the same year. In Japan, the number was 22. [The EU figures pre-date the 10-country expansion which took place on May 1, 2004.]

Jean Lemaire, a professor of insurance and actuarial science at Wharton, argues that these facts should be looked at in tandem. In a recent paper entitled, "The Cost of Firearm Deaths in the United States: Reduced Life Expectancies and Increased Insurance Costs," to be published in the September 2005 issue of The Journal of Risk and Insurance, Lemaire works through the medical and financial impact of firearms on American society. The results are eye opening.

Researchers who study firearm violence in the U.S. come at their subject from a number of perspectives, including the most obvious -- medical costs. Yet it is the other costs that are "more difficult to quantify," Lemaire writes. "They include the cost of public resources devoted to law enforcement, private investment by individuals in protection and avoidance, lost productivity of victims and changes in the quality of life, limits on freedoms to live or work in certain places, restrictions on residential and commercial location decisions, limitations in hours of operations of retail establishments, emotional costs to the forced adaptation to increased risk, and the cost of pain and fear."

Reduced Life Expectancy

The flashpoint in the long-running argument in the U.S. over the regulation of firearms is the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which states: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Gun control advocates read the amendment as permitting regulation of firearms possession; gun rights advocates read it as enshrining in law an individual's unfettered right to own guns.

While sensitive to the political context of the gun control versus gun rights debate, Lemaire stresses that what his work provides is data. For example, he cites a study from 2000 which estimates that the aggregate cost of gun violence in the U.S. is approximately $100 billion annually, or about $360 for every American. Given his background as an actuary, Lemaire has focused his research on life expectancy and insurance costs. His paper is based "on facts. It's an exact calculation designed to bring some more light into the debate.... I am providing figures that no one can disagree with," he says, acknowledging, however, that people "can certainly disagree about what we do with these figures."

Lemaire calculates how much time Americans lose off their lives as a result of gun violence and how much more they pay in insurance costs as a result. What is striking about both costs is how unevenly they are distributed throughout the population. According to Lemaire, all firearm deaths in 2000 -- that is, both homicides and suicides -- reduced life expectancy by an average of 103.6 days. Broken down by race and gender, however, there are notable gaps in how various groups fare. Men lose between five and six times more days than women: 166.8 versus 30.5. African-American men lose more than twice as many days as white men: 361.5 versus 150.7. The most significant gap, logically enough, combines these racial and gender differentials: There is more than a tenfold difference between days lost by African-American men (361.5) versus days lost by white women (31.1).

Lemaire calculates the annual insurance costs which can be ascribed to firearm-related deaths at billions of dollars. He cites statistics from a 2001 study by the American Council for Life Insurance which suggest that, at the end of 2000, there were 148 million group and 35 million individual term life insurance policies in force in the United States, as well as 125 million group and 8 million individual whole life policies, yielding a combined total annual premium income of just under $130 billion.

Having previously calculated the discounts for both term (9.87%) and whole life (1.89%) policies if firearm deaths were eliminated from the equation, Lemaire estimates that the annual insurance cost of firearm violence in the U.S. is $4.9 billion. However, "this calculation overstates costs," he writes, "as the mortality of insured lives markedly differs from population mortality." Lemaire goes on to note that since homicide disproportionately impacts the young, and since life insurance is rarely purchased by or for people under 25, the current actuarial tables already "discount" homicide simply by virtue of demographics.

Even paring the increased insurance costs down to compensate for those factors, he continues, they are probably still in the same general range as the estimated $2 billion to $2.3 billion in total annual medical costs for gun-related injuries or the increased cost of administering the criminal justice system due to gun deaths -- including incarceration costs -- estimated at some $2.4 billion.

To put things in an epidemiological context, Lemaire points out that "among all fatal injuries, only motor vehicle accidents have a stronger effect [than firearm deaths]." Further, the numbers show that "the elimination of all firearm deaths in the U.S. would increase the male life expectancy more than the total eradication of all colon and prostate cancers."

The Substitution Effect

One objection to the idea that reducing firearm deaths would increase life expectancy and reduce insurance costs is the argument that guns are simply a means to an end -- and that people who are intent on violence, either toward themselves or others, will find a way to achieve that objective with whatever tools are available. This is called the substitution effect. "I don't believe that Americans are necessarily more violent than the Japanese or the Europeans," Lemaire says, "and certainly the history of the 20th century shows a lot of violence in other countries. I don't think violence is in the genes of the American people."

Japan "certainly provided more than its share of violence in the 20th century," he continues, "but at the dawn of the 21st century, Japan is among the safest countries in the world: Zero guns in Japan means zero crimes. It bears mention that Japan also has an extremely low rate of thefts, burglaries, etc., a counterweight to the argument by pro-gun people that guns at home reduce burglaries."

He cites a number of studies which show that, in the area of homicides, there is little or no substitution effect. One such study done in 1988 contrasts Seattle, Wa., and Vancouver, British Columbia - two cities nearly identical in terms of climate, population, unemployment level, average income and other demographic characteristics. But as a result of far stricter gun laws in Canada he writes, only 12% of Vancouver's inhabitants own guns, compared to an estimated 41% of Seattle residents.

The study finds "that the two cities essentially experience the same rates of burglary, robbery, homicides and assaults without a gun," Lemaire writes. "However, in Seattle the rate of assault with a firearm is 7 times higher than in Vancouver, and the rate of homicide with a handgun is 4.8 times higher. The authors conclude that the availability of handguns in Seattle increases the assault and homicide rates with a gun, but does not decrease the crime rates without guns, and that restrictive handgun laws reduce the homicide rate in a community."

In the case of suicide, Lemaire notes, there is greater evidence of a substitution effect. "Reduced availability of one method," he writes, "may prompt an increase in other methods. Some despondent individuals contemplating suicide may attempt to take their life by another means if a firearm is unavailable. Indeed, in [places like] Japan and Hong Kong, suicide rates exceed the U.S. rate despite strictly limited access to firearms. Less than 1% of suicides in these countries are committed with a firearm ...." Lemaire goes on to say that "the introduction of assumptions that I believe are appropriate to estimate the substitution effect hardly change the number of days lost due to guns: from 103.6 to 95.8 for the average U.S. citizen."

Future Lines of Inquiry

Lemaire is not clear what use will be made of his data. Japan, he notes in his paper, has approximately 50 handguns, mostly the property of athletes who compete in international shooting competitions. The best estimate is that there are more than 250 million guns in America. It is extremely unlikely that the U.S. is going to move to confiscate guns, he says.

He does see potential opportunities, however, in the area of how insurance companies can better price, and perhaps more equitably distribute the cost of, the risks associated with guns. "There is some evidence," Lemaire says, "including evidence from the Penn School of Medicine, that just owning a gun significantly increases your chance of dying -- even when you control for variables like neighborhood, education, and so on."

He also sees room for further work in this area, both in academia and also within the insurance industry. One logical thread to pursue concerns the risk calculations that insurance companies make in pricing life insurance policies. Demographics and lifestyle choices are the bread and butter of those kinds of calculations, but -- given recent personal experience -- Lemaire is a bit puzzled by the questions asked of policy applicants. "I just applied for life insurance last week," he says. "I am a scuba diver. [The insurance company] asked me 25 questions about my scuba diving habits. This is a sport that kills 100 people annually worldwide. Nobody asked me whether I have a gun in my house, yet guns kill 30,000 people every year just in the U.S. It is bizarre that no one thought to ask that question."

[mamelukesabre]

If you come back and say there is no need for bucking bulls, you can take that up with the PBR and PRCA.
~~~~~~~~

Thanks for the laugh. You are advocating the banning of pitbulls when you yourself are involved in the raising of bucking bulls! What a joke.

[Ditter]

Rodeo and bull riding is a legitimate sport and big business. Pit bull fighting is against the law. I guess you don’t see the difference.

[Razz Barry]

My post: A person only has to watch Animal Cops, on Animal Planet, to get an idea of the low class of the average pit owner.

Your post: Yeah, all those low class pit bull owners, like Thomas Edison....or me for that matter

I would not call Thomas Edison average. You, how ever, could well be. You may suffer from, what those in dog showing circles call, Kennel Blindness. People with said condition are unable to see the faults in their dogs. They all, like liberals, cry discrimination when their cow hocked over shot dog doesn't win, at the very least, Best of Breed. I stand by what I said. The average pit owners are low class.

[kanawa]

When I posted the Contributing Factors to this attack in post 186 and included Failure of Animal Control,
little did I know how extensive that failure was....

Pit bull attack not first trouble

Long before Sue Gorman was severely attacked by two pit bulls, there had been a problem with dangerous dogs on the lose in her Key Peninsula neighborhood.

Since 2000, Pierce County authorities have responded to 16 complaints involving dog problems at the home of the two pit bulls who attacked the disabled woman Tuesday.

Six visits were for calls that neighbors made about aggressive dogs, six were for calls about roaming dogs, two were for reports of neglect, one was to pick up a stray, and one was for Tuesday’s attack, said Pierce County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Ed Troyer.

“That’s a lot of calls. (Tuesday) is not the first time they’ve had issues,” Troyer said Friday.

On Tuesday, two pit bulls from the property at 10610 132nd St. Court N.W. mauled Sue Gorman, 59, a disabled woman who lives alone, in her home after she tried to fend them off a third dog, which was eventually killed.

Troyer said the 15 previous calls resulted in eight citations – six for violations of leash laws and two for not having dogs licensed.

County prosecutors are weighing whether to file charges against the pit bulls’ owners in connection with Tuesday’s attack.

Troyer did not have additional information Friday about who had been cited at the house.

The owner of the property, Shellie Rae Wilson, did not respond Friday to a request for comment.

Wilson’s relationship to the property since 2000 is uncertain.

The Pierce County Assessor-Treasurer’s Office shows she bought the property for $80,000 in 2003. However, another county record states she was the owner in January 2000.

Meanwhile, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department has begun forwarding reports concerning Tuesday’s pit bull attack to county prosecutors.

To file felony charges, prosecutors must show the owners of the dogs “had reasonable cause to know these dogs were potentially problematic,” said deputy prosecuting attorney Phil Sorenson.

“I’m not sure whether we will be able to do that,” he said.

The owner of one of the pit bulls, Zach Martin, said earlier this week that he was watching the other dog while its owner was out of town, and that he didn’t know how the dogs got out. Martin is Wilson’s son, according to KIRO-TV.

....

[Feiny]

The owner and his son should be killed. I hate these dumbass dog owners who think they can do what they want. As a responsible dog owner, it pains me to rtead this....and other stories...like Vick....WTF is wrong with people?

[AnnaZ]

Long before Sue Gorman was severely attacked by two pit bulls, there had been a problem with dangerous dogs on the lose in her Key Peninsula neighborhood.

The writer is obviously a) not a FReeper, or b) a FReeper so terrified of writing "loose" and thereby calling out the wrath of the spelling police.

(This is honestly the first time I've ever seen the mix-up reversed. LOL.)

[Badeye]

‘County prosecutors are weighing whether to file charges against the pit bulls’ owners in connection with Tuesday’s attack.’

How is it even a QUESTION?

Good Lord.....(eyes rolling)

[kanawa]

How do we prevent dog attacks?

Some will look at this story and focus only on the contributing factor of the breed.
They will call for banning of the breed as a way to prevent attacks such as this.
The problem with this generalization is that it is not exacting or precise enough
to prevent a similar attack by other types or breeds of dogs.

Others will point out that irresponsible dog ownership was a contributing factor.
This generalization is more exacting and inclusive
as it can be applied to a greater range of dog attacks.

How can we counter irresponsible dog ownership?
We can tackle before it occurs by various means of education,
perhaps as part of the licensing process,
but when it does occur, the need is for strict and effective Animal Control laws
backed up by rigorous Animal Control agency enforcement.

This case with...
“15 previous calls result[ing] in eight citations –
six for violations of leash laws and two for not having dogs licensed”
indicates either the Animal Control laws (conditions applied to the IDO)
were not strict enough or Animal Control enforcement was not rigorous enough
and thus was a contributing factor in the attack.

[kanawa]

Maybe I’m being confusing. Just to clarify...

I’m distinguishing between...

controlling your animal,
an act that separates the responsible from the irresponsible dog owner

and

Animal Control..the combination of laws, regulations and enforcement pertaining to dog ownership

[meandog]

See post #430 and tell me if that sounds like responsbile ownership...blame the owner, not the breed!

[unspun]

See post #430 and tell me if that sounds like responsbile ownership...blame the owner, not the breed!

Blame the owner. Eliminate the breed.

[kanawa]

RDO Woof

TACOMA — A Pierce County jury has awarded $2.2 million in damages to a Gig Harbor woman who was mauled by two pit bulls that entered her home through an open sliding-glass door four years ago.

The bulk of the judgment will be split between the owners of one of the pit bulls and Pierce County.

The jury found Shellie Wilson and her son, Zachary Martin, 52 percent liable for the injuries and property damage suffered by Sue Gorman during the mauling.

Martin owned one of the animals, named Betty, that attacked Gorman, and he and his mother were looking after the other, named Tank. They'll have to pay about $1.1 million to Gorman.

Jurors assigned 42 percent of the blame to Pierce County, which will have to pay about $924,000.

Gorman's attorneys — Michael McKasy and Shelly Speir — argued during trial that county animal control was negligent for not taking action against Wilson and Martin despite having received numerous complaints about their dogs running loose and terrorizing people.

Gorman filed two complaints about her neighbors' dogs in the months before the attack on Aug. 21, 2007.

The jury assigned 5 percent of the blame for the attack to Jacqueline Evans-Hubbard, who left Tank in the care of Wilson and Martin when she went out of town.

Jurors said Gorman was 1 percent to blame.

McKasy, who talked to jurors after the Friday verdict, said they expressed particular concern that county animal control did not do more to address neighbors' complaints about the dogs.

"They had 14 complaints," he said. "The dog (Betty) could have and should have been confiscated."

The county's attorney, Ron Williams, argued during trial that Wilson and Martin were to blame for Gorman's injuries for not keeping Betty and Tank under control and confined to their property.

Gorman was mauled after awakening to find Betty and Tank in her bedroom attacking her service dog and a neighbor's Jack Russell terrier.

She had left her sliding-glass door open so Misty and Romeo could come and go from her house.

She was mauled when she tried to pull the pit bulls off the other dogs. Romeo, the Jack Russell terrier, died in the attack, and the two pit bulls later were put down after their owners surrendered them to animal control. Misty survived.

Gorman suffered bites to her arms, face, neck, chest and nose and was hospitalized briefly after the attack.

It's unclear how the pit bulls escaped Wilson's and Martin's house that morning
link

---

The "dog door" has become the "sliding glass door".

The apportion of blame looks about right, imo.

[Salamander]

“The “dog door” has become the “sliding glass door”.

I just have *doors* that are either shut or open, depending on which way ~I’m~ personally positioning them.

That way, I know exactly where my dogs are all the time.
Secure fence be damned, they’re -never- out there unsupervised.

I hope the “owners” spend the rest of their lives suffering in abject, miserable poverty.

As an aside from, odds are very good they won’t just ‘write off’ the dead dogs and go get new ones.

I love a good, brutal object lesson.

[LowOiL]

I shot and killed a stray pitbull on my property a few weeks back. It was killing chickens and running with a small pack of dogs. It appeared to be a threat to anyone it would come into contact with.

No complaints here. It seems a lot of owners of pits let the become feral. Wild dogs are very dangerous, especially with the jaw strength of some breeds. I have done the very same thing you did, with a chow that broke into mom's yard years ago and was killing her birds.