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Dog Bite Fatalites 2010 Final Report
Updated: I have updated this since it was originally written because I had neglected to tag the incident (#7) in Conyers, GA as a fatality and missed it when I went back through my reports. I have added the story to the overall report.
*******
This is my least favorite post I do every year because I don't like dwelling on the negative stuff, but because there is a lot of misleading information out there on this topic that I feel like having all of the attacks in a central location will at least allow people to have easy access to the actual data.
Before I get into the information, there are a couple of things that I want to note:
1) Fatal incidents are extremely rare. With about 75 million dogs in the US, and 32 fatal dog attacks each year, they are such a statistically anomaly that decisions on "breed" aggression should not be based on such rare incidents. By comparison, the US Population is 300 million (4x the dog population) and saw over 16,000 murders (500x the number of dog-related deaths). If only humans could be close to as safe as dogs.
2) When you look at fatal incidents, the circumstances surrounding them usually follow a few sets of circumstances that will become obvious when you read. It is my hope that by seeing the circumstances behind the attacks we can eliminate many future attacks so these tragedies can be avoided. Other sources that cover these attacks tend to focus solely on the type of dog involved which is erroneous because you can't judge the acts of dogs without factoring in the role of people in the attacks.
3) If people track bite information only by breed, without tracking the information by circumstances, the only correlation they can come up with for attacks is by breed and have missed the most obvious conclusion. Even if every fatal attack was caused by the same type of dog, these attacks are so rare that it would be impossible to cast the actions of an entire breed (which likely number in the millions) based on the actions of a handful of dogs.
4) The vast majority of my data, including breed ID, comes from media sources, so they come with the inherent ID issues that come from visual breed identification and from media mis-reporting.
5) The difference in media exposure for the different breeds of dogs is extremely notable.
So with that, here are the years attacks in the United States (and one from Canada as well). The attacks are listed chronologically -- and links go to my original writeup with one excption -- which is an attack that I didn't ever do an individual writeup on.
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1) Omar Martinez, 3, Apple Valley, CA - pit bull - The young boy and his father were in the back yard playing with the family's 'pit bull'. The boy's father went inside the home for a bit, leaving the young child alone with the dog -- and during this time the dog attacked the boy and killed him. The story was picked up in more than 250 media outlets (most of which never noted the boy was left alone). Apple Valley is an area that has a poverty level 50% higher than the national average.
2) Johnny Wilson, 56, Chicago, IL - Mixed Breed -The man was found dead insdie his family home after being attacked by up to six dogs that lived in the home. According to the reports, the dogs were often fearful of the man and had been aggressive to hime just two weeks prior. The dogs were reported by police to be 'pit bulls', but the Chicago Animal Care and Control Commissioner changed the breed ID to "mixed breeds". The story was covered in more than 250 media outlets (but only the Chicago Tribune followed up with the change in breed ID).
3) Anastasia Bingham, 5, Terry, MS - Unknown- The girl was attacked by at least one of a group of stray dogs that had been roaming the neighborhood. Neighbors called animal control multiple times about the free-roaming dogs, but nothing was ever done. Officials initially declared that a 'pit bull' was responsible for the attack, but DNA evidence of the dog they thought was responsible for the attack didn't match the DNA evidence on the victim. It never became completely clear what dog was responsible for the attack This incident occurred in another high-poverty area. The story was reported by 20 media outlets.
4) Robert Hocker, 11 days, Independence, MN - Siberian Husky - The infant was left in a car seat on a bed unattended and the dog bit the child on the head. The child died of the injuries. The story was picked up by 30 media outlets.
5) Christine Staab, 37, Philadelphia - pit bulls - The woman had a drug addiction and came home to her parent's house 'high'. She got into an argument with her mother, and during the argument a lamp got knocked over and one of the 6 dogs in the house (all described as 'pit bulls') attacked the woman and she died. The zip code where the incident took place has a poverty rate nearly 3x the state average. The sotry was picked up by 13 media outlets.
6) Jane Doe, 3, Ocala, FL - American Bulldog - The toddler went into the back yard unattended and into a pen where four American Bulldogs were kept. The girl became entangled in the chain of one of the dogs that was chained to a tree. The girl was then killed by that chained dog. The story was reported in 8 media outlets, 6 of them incorrectly called the dogs 'pit bulls' even though the mother was a registered breeder of American Bulldogs.
7) Jane Doe, 5 days, Conyers, GA - "pit bull" - The newborn infant was left alone in its bassinet. The mother heard the baby crying and went to go check on the child. When she got into the other room, she found the dog on top of the newborn. The child died from the bite wounds a while later.
8) Ashlynn Dawn Anderson, 4, Oregon -Rottweiler - The girl was outside in her front yard unattended and apparently one of the dogs owned by the family escaped the back yard and attacked the girl in in the front yard. The story was picked up by 250+ media outlets -- in large part because the girl is the step-daughter of Jesse Browning of the TV series Ax Men.
9) Justin Lopez, 8 months, Perkins, OK - Rottweiler - Two dogs given to the family only the day before were brought indoors because of bad weather. At some point, one or both dogs attacked and killed the 8 month old boy. The only adult in the home at the time slept through the attack. The attack occured on Tribal lands, so poverty, sadly, is likely a factor. The attack was reported in 179 media outlets.
10) Thomas Carter, Jr, 7 days old, Pasco, FL - 'mixed breed pit bull' - The young boy was asleep on the bed with his mother when the 100 lbs dog attacked the infant while the boy's 16 year old mother slept through the incident. She wasn't even aware of the attack until neighbors knocked on the door around noon. The case was eventually turned over the social services. This small neighborhood in Pasco, Moon Lake, was the site of another fatal dog attack 6 months earlier and is an area with a very high poverty level. The story was reported 240+ media outlets.
11) Krystal Brink, 3, Napakiak, AK - "sled dog" - The young toddler wandered away from the home she was visiting and wandered up to a group of 7 dogs chained in the back yard (this would be a common way to keep sled dogs which would also be a necessary form of transportation in this area). The story was covered in 300 media outlets.
12) Nathan Aguirre, 2, San Bernardino, CA - Pit Bulls - The boy was outside in the yard with his father and the dog when the father went inside briefly, leaving the child alone with two dogs in the back yard. For unknown reasons, one of the dogs attacked and killed the young boy. The area where the attack took place had a 50% higher than average poverty rate.
13) Savannah Gragg, 9, Kokomo, IN - Pit Bull - According to the reports, the girl opened the door to the residence to let out the family 'pit bull' when the dog juped on her, knocked her down and bit her in the neck, lacerating the girl's trachea which eventually killed her. The story was picked up by 10 media outlets.
14) Jane Doe, 3 weeks, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec - Husky - The 17 year old mother and the 37 year old grandmother went outside together to have a cigarette, leaving the newborn inside alone with the two Huskies that live in the family's home.
15) Michael Winters, 29, Henrietta Township, OH - pack of dogs - The 29 year old man was apparently attacked by one or more of the more than a dozen "mostly large mutts" that the man and his father kept on the property. The story was picked up by around 100 media outlets.
16) Kyle Holland, 5, Lincoln Park MI - Husky mix - The boy's mother put the young boy to bed around 10:30 at night, and then found the boy dead in his room the next morning from injuries from a dog attack. The mother said the dog is a Husky/GSD mix. The mother's boyfriend was arrested for drug possession when drugs were found in the man's car and in the home during the investigation.
17) William Parker, 71, Memphis, TN - Pit Bulls - Two dogs that had been in an attack incident a couple of days before, were again allowed to roam at-large and attacked Parker, who suffered cardiac arrest during the attack (however, because of the severity of injuries suffered, it remains a bite fatality vs blamed solely on the heart attack). The attack happened in a very poverty laiden area of Memphis.
18) Jacob Bisbee, 2, Concord, CA - Pit bull - The family kept three of the 5 dogs they owned in the garage (the other two stayed in the back yard) and the toddler opened the door to the garage and was attacked by one of the dogs. The dog that is believed to have killed the boy had shown aggression to both of the young children in the home previously and had killed another family dog. The story was picked up by over 260 media outlets.
19) Aaron Carlson, 2, San Diego, CA - German Shepherd mix - The boy's mother was asleep downstairs and the dog was with young Aaron and his 3 siblings, aged 7, 5 and 3 -- and the youngest was attacked and killed. The attacked occurred in military base housing while the father was deployed and was picked up by 80 news outlets.
Updated: I have updated this since it was originally written because I had neglected to tag the incident (#7) in Conyers, GA as a fatality and missed it when I went back through my reports. I have added the story to the overall report.
*******
This is my least favorite post I do every year because I don't like dwelling on the negative stuff, but because there is a lot of misleading information out there on this topic that I feel like having all of the attacks in a central location will at least allow people to have easy access to the actual data.
Before I get into the information, there are a couple of things that I want to note:
1) Fatal incidents are extremely rare. With about 75 million dogs in the US, and 32 fatal dog attacks each year, they are such a statistically anomaly that decisions on "breed" aggression should not be based on such rare incidents. By comparison, the US Population is 300 million (4x the dog population) and saw over 16,000 murders (500x the number of dog-related deaths). If only humans could be close to as safe as dogs.
2) When you look at fatal incidents, the circumstances surrounding them usually follow a few sets of circumstances that will become obvious when you read. It is my hope that by seeing the circumstances behind the attacks we can eliminate many future attacks so these tragedies can be avoided. Other sources that cover these attacks tend to focus solely on the type of dog involved which is erroneous because you can't judge the acts of dogs without factoring in the role of people in the attacks.
3) If people track bite information only by breed, without tracking the information by circumstances, the only correlation they can come up with for attacks is by breed and have missed the most obvious conclusion. Even if every fatal attack was caused by the same type of dog, these attacks are so rare that it would be impossible to cast the actions of an entire breed (which likely number in the millions) based on the actions of a handful of dogs.
4) The vast majority of my data, including breed ID, comes from media sources, so they come with the inherent ID issues that come from visual breed identification and from media mis-reporting.
5) The difference in media exposure for the different breeds of dogs is extremely notable.
So with that, here are the years attacks in the United States (and one from Canada as well). The attacks are listed chronologically -- and links go to my original writeup with one excption -- which is an attack that I didn't ever do an individual writeup on.
**********
1) Omar Martinez, 3, Apple Valley, CA - pit bull - The young boy and his father were in the back yard playing with the family's 'pit bull'. The boy's father went inside the home for a bit, leaving the young child alone with the dog -- and during this time the dog attacked the boy and killed him. The story was picked up in more than 250 media outlets (most of which never noted the boy was left alone). Apple Valley is an area that has a poverty level 50% higher than the national average.
2) Johnny Wilson, 56, Chicago, IL - Mixed Breed -The man was found dead insdie his family home after being attacked by up to six dogs that lived in the home. According to the reports, the dogs were often fearful of the man and had been aggressive to hime just two weeks prior. The dogs were reported by police to be 'pit bulls', but the Chicago Animal Care and Control Commissioner changed the breed ID to "mixed breeds". The story was covered in more than 250 media outlets (but only the Chicago Tribune followed up with the change in breed ID).
3) Anastasia Bingham, 5, Terry, MS - Unknown- The girl was attacked by at least one of a group of stray dogs that had been roaming the neighborhood. Neighbors called animal control multiple times about the free-roaming dogs, but nothing was ever done. Officials initially declared that a 'pit bull' was responsible for the attack, but DNA evidence of the dog they thought was responsible for the attack didn't match the DNA evidence on the victim. It never became completely clear what dog was responsible for the attack This incident occurred in another high-poverty area. The story was reported by 20 media outlets.
4) Robert Hocker, 11 days, Independence, MN - Siberian Husky - The infant was left in a car seat on a bed unattended and the dog bit the child on the head. The child died of the injuries. The story was picked up by 30 media outlets.
5) Christine Staab, 37, Philadelphia - pit bulls - The woman had a drug addiction and came home to her parent's house 'high'. She got into an argument with her mother, and during the argument a lamp got knocked over and one of the 6 dogs in the house (all described as 'pit bulls') attacked the woman and she died. The zip code where the incident took place has a poverty rate nearly 3x the state average. The sotry was picked up by 13 media outlets.
6) Jane Doe, 3, Ocala, FL - American Bulldog - The toddler went into the back yard unattended and into a pen where four American Bulldogs were kept. The girl became entangled in the chain of one of the dogs that was chained to a tree. The girl was then killed by that chained dog. The story was reported in 8 media outlets, 6 of them incorrectly called the dogs 'pit bulls' even though the mother was a registered breeder of American Bulldogs.
7) Jane Doe, 5 days, Conyers, GA - "pit bull" - The newborn infant was left alone in its bassinet. The mother heard the baby crying and went to go check on the child. When she got into the other room, she found the dog on top of the newborn. The child died from the bite wounds a while later.
8) Ashlynn Dawn Anderson, 4, Oregon -Rottweiler - The girl was outside in her front yard unattended and apparently one of the dogs owned by the family escaped the back yard and attacked the girl in in the front yard. The story was picked up by 250+ media outlets -- in large part because the girl is the step-daughter of Jesse Browning of the TV series Ax Men.
9) Justin Lopez, 8 months, Perkins, OK - Rottweiler - Two dogs given to the family only the day before were brought indoors because of bad weather. At some point, one or both dogs attacked and killed the 8 month old boy. The only adult in the home at the time slept through the attack. The attack occured on Tribal lands, so poverty, sadly, is likely a factor. The attack was reported in 179 media outlets.
10) Thomas Carter, Jr, 7 days old, Pasco, FL - 'mixed breed pit bull' - The young boy was asleep on the bed with his mother when the 100 lbs dog attacked the infant while the boy's 16 year old mother slept through the incident. She wasn't even aware of the attack until neighbors knocked on the door around noon. The case was eventually turned over the social services. This small neighborhood in Pasco, Moon Lake, was the site of another fatal dog attack 6 months earlier and is an area with a very high poverty level. The story was reported 240+ media outlets.
11) Krystal Brink, 3, Napakiak, AK - "sled dog" - The young toddler wandered away from the home she was visiting and wandered up to a group of 7 dogs chained in the back yard (this would be a common way to keep sled dogs which would also be a necessary form of transportation in this area). The story was covered in 300 media outlets.
12) Nathan Aguirre, 2, San Bernardino, CA - Pit Bulls - The boy was outside in the yard with his father and the dog when the father went inside briefly, leaving the child alone with two dogs in the back yard. For unknown reasons, one of the dogs attacked and killed the young boy. The area where the attack took place had a 50% higher than average poverty rate.
13) Savannah Gragg, 9, Kokomo, IN - Pit Bull - According to the reports, the girl opened the door to the residence to let out the family 'pit bull' when the dog juped on her, knocked her down and bit her in the neck, lacerating the girl's trachea which eventually killed her. The story was picked up by 10 media outlets.
14) Jane Doe, 3 weeks, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec - Husky - The 17 year old mother and the 37 year old grandmother went outside together to have a cigarette, leaving the newborn inside alone with the two Huskies that live in the family's home.
15) Michael Winters, 29, Henrietta Township, OH - pack of dogs - The 29 year old man was apparently attacked by one or more of the more than a dozen "mostly large mutts" that the man and his father kept on the property. The story was picked up by around 100 media outlets.
16) Kyle Holland, 5, Lincoln Park MI - Husky mix - The boy's mother put the young boy to bed around 10:30 at night, and then found the boy dead in his room the next morning from injuries from a dog attack. The mother said the dog is a Husky/GSD mix. The mother's boyfriend was arrested for drug possession when drugs were found in the man's car and in the home during the investigation.
17) William Parker, 71, Memphis, TN - Pit Bulls - Two dogs that had been in an attack incident a couple of days before, were again allowed to roam at-large and attacked Parker, who suffered cardiac arrest during the attack (however, because of the severity of injuries suffered, it remains a bite fatality vs blamed solely on the heart attack). The attack happened in a very poverty laiden area of Memphis.
18) Jacob Bisbee, 2, Concord, CA - Pit bull - The family kept three of the 5 dogs they owned in the garage (the other two stayed in the back yard) and the toddler opened the door to the garage and was attacked by one of the dogs. The dog that is believed to have killed the boy had shown aggression to both of the young children in the home previously and had killed another family dog. The story was picked up by over 260 media outlets.
19) Aaron Carlson, 2, San Diego, CA - German Shepherd mix - The boy's mother was asleep downstairs and the dog was with young Aaron and his 3 siblings, aged 7, 5 and 3 -- and the youngest was attacked and killed. The attacked occurred in military base housing while the father was deployed and was picked up by 80 news outlets.
