Posted on 08/21/2003 10:44:00 AM PDT by knak
ROXBORO -- Two people lured a Person County Animal Control officer to a rural road earlier this week and then ordered a pit bull to attack her, officials said Wednesday.
The officer, Patsy Ann Bryant, was treated at Person County Memorial Hospital after the attack Tuesday and was released the same day, said Capt. Calvin B. Clayton, of the Person County Sheriff's Office.
"She's pretty shaken up," Clayton said, declining to describe the severity of Bryant's wounds, except to say she received stitches.
Meanwhile, sheriff's deputies arrested a man Wednesday who has one dogfighting conviction on his record and who is awaiting trial on another dogfighting charge, as well as a charge of intimidating a witness in the case. Bryant is the officer who brought the most recent dogfighting charge against the man, 39-year-old Michael E. Dowdell.
Dowdell has not been charged in Tuesday's apparent ambush.
Clayton said the attack came after the Animal Control Department received a call about a dog that had been hit by a car in Hurdle Mills. Bryant responded to the call and found a vehicle with two people sitting in it.
When Bryant approached the car, one of the occupants "gave an attack signal to the dog, and the dog attacked her," Clayton said.
"It was a bogus call," Clayton said. "It appears as if [the attack] was a setup at this time."
Authorities arrested Dowdell on Tuesday on the witness-intimidation charge -- a felony -- but Person County Magistrate Herman Gentry released him on an unsecured $5,000 bond. Clayton said Gentry released Dowdell on Tuesday afternoon before the attack on Bryant took place.
Clayton said deputies questioned Dowdell late Tuesday about the attack and called him a "person of interest," although he stopped short of calling Dowdell a suspect.
Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith ordered Dowdell's arrest Wednesday after officials and the witness whom Dowdell is accused of threatening complained about the low bond he received Tuesday. Dowdell, whose address was unavailable, will appear in Smith's courtroom for a bond hearing at 2 p.m. today in the Person County Courthouse.
Smith is expected to raise Dowdell's bond during the hearing. But Dowdell's attorney, Danny Long Jr., said he would fight the attempt to increase his client's bond.
Dowdell was indicted in February on felony dogfighting and animal-cruelty charges. Bryant is listed as the complaining officer, according to court records.
Deputies and animal control officers raided Dowdell's Tobacco Road residence on Jan. 27 and found 12 pit bulls chained to the axles of automobiles. They also found dogfighting publications and equipment used for training and harboring dogs for fighting, including small treadmills and veterinary medical supplies, such as syringes, steroids, pain killers and intravenous fluid bags.
After he posted an unspecified amount of bond in April, Dowdell spoke at length with The Herald-Sun about the charges and vehemently denied he was training the dogs to fight. He said he used the treadmills to strengthen the dogs for "dog pull" competitions, which are essentially strong-man competitions for canines. Dowdell said his mother, who runs a large kennel in Florida, taught him how to nurse his pit bulls back to health whenever they got into scrapes with each other.
Asked about his 1997 conviction for dogfighting, Dowdell swore those days were long gone.
"I'm a changed man," Dowdell said during the April interview.
Dowdell's arrest Tuesday morning was in connection with an intimidating letter written to his ex-girlfriend, 36-year-old Shawn Cannada, in June. Cannada, who went by the name Shawn Andres before she was recently married, is set to testify against Dowdell on the dogfighting charge.
The two lived with each other for several years and have three children, Cannada told The Herald-Sun on Wednesday. Their children are in the custody of Orange County Social Services, she said.
Court records show Cannada obtained a domestic violence protective order against Dowdell on April 29 in Orange County District Court.
Court records also show that Dowdell filed misdemeanor trespass and communicating threats charges against Cannada in January. Those charges were voluntarily dismissed in Orange County District Court on May 6.
Dowdell was charged with communicating threats and violating the protective violence order on July 11. He faces a Sept. 8 court date on those charges.
"I fear for my life," Cannada told The Herald-Sun on Wednesday.
Person-Caswell District Attorney Joel Brewer did not return phone messages Wednesday. Bryant could not be reached for comment.
Dowdell has pleaded not guilty to the dogfighting and animal cruelty charges and is set for trial on those charges Sept. 22.
His 1997 arrest was before state lawmakers made dogfighting a felony. Dowdell pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor dogfighting, paid $500 in fines and was given a 45-day suspended sentence. He also agreed not to own any pit bulls for one year.
Yes there are...they are "convicted felon", which is what he'll be called from now on.
We apologize for the inconvenience
This is just too funny.
You a shut in? I ask because you obviously don't get out much. These dogs have been around since out country was first immigrated to. Teddy Rosevelt owned an APBT, took it with him all the time, you know to bite foriegn dignitaries and such when it was out of control.
And as I live in Manhattan, I've seen a lot of them.
So living in Manhattan makes you what...the all seeing, all knowing, judge of something like 4 million dogs? You sir, are high.
So you with the one possibly-non-deranged pit bull in existence in your backyard can huff and puff till you turn purple, but it doesn't change the truth.
LOL, the truth is that more people are bitten by Jack Russel Terriers than by Pit Bulls, hell, more people are bitten by humans than by all dog breeds combined.
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