They got him and named him like that because it's a sweet loving breed obviously

seems weird they went so out of their way not to just shoot it. i mean cops will shoot a dachshund for barking in their general direction, here you have an actually vicious dog that will no doubt be put down anyway and you're spending hours letting animal control capture it.

I was thinking the same thing. I guess some police forces have not been caught up on the newer killing dogs protocol.

Probably white.

Hey if I had to wear one of those Xmas sweaters I'd attack too. You can hardly blame the pitbull in this case.

I propose that we make all pit owners strictly liable on a criminal basis as though the owner did exactly what the pit did. If a pit rips off a toddler's face, owner gets hit with a mayhem or serious battery charge. If a pit kills someone, owner gets prosecuted for manslaughter. To answer those who want to raise semantic issues about what exactly a pit entails, I'm happy to extend this principle to all dogs, including my own two German Shepherds. We socialized one; and the other was socialized by the breeder from whom we bought him and we're confident it was done correctly. We exercise and play and train them daily. I entirely understand that past history doesn't control future events, and it's absolutely possible that one of our dogs will rip someone's face off. Given their behavior and disposition, I highly doubt it, and I'm willing to suffer the consequences if that happens.

TLR. Cliffs: If you want to own a pit, suffer the consequences when the pit does what pits do.

Nice to see this bumped...

Did my redneck uncle-in-law bring his toddlers over for Christmas after the Thanksgiving debacle? Yep. Nice parenting. This is especially true when you take into account he lives within walking distance (~.25m away) of where he was going so my in-laws could walk over to his house or even drive ffs. Idiots.

eh, a mauling seems justified in this case. Not that Im gonna troll these peoples social media, but whats the odds theres posts about how sweet and loving "scarface" is?

These people just don't look like the pit owner types:

Indeed. She looks like she ownes a camel.

Goodness! LMAO. haha. well played.

I'm sure the parents of children that get killed by pit bulls would take a great deal of comfort with that.

I mean, it pretty much evens out the circumstances and the parents will probably forget that they even had the kid after a couple of years or so, so yeah, seems like a pretty solid approach.

she needed the surgery anyway

They probably couldn't risk a live round given that the backyard was covered in pit bull victims.

All I'm trying to do with that rule is to minimize kid deaths from pit bulls by encouraging pit owners to make damn sure their pits are either fully socialized or, if not, restrained. My proposed rule really has nothing to do with victims; it's an attempt to manipulate conduct of pit owners.

Why prosecute anyone for anything really? I mean it's not going to change what happened.

That doesn't seem just though, I'm sure you agree that it's a lot worse to kill a kid yourself by tearing apart his face/neck than being the owner of a dog which does the same. Isn't it important that the punishment scales with the severity of the crime?

Probably just bad owners. But what could possibly have attracted the type of people to name a dog 'scarface' to pit bulls I wonder?

Sure, but the criminal law takes care of this by grading homicides. Generally speaking, to get a first degree murder rap, the criminal needs deliberate and premeditated intent to kill. For second degree, the criminal doesn't premeditate it, but the killing has to be a distinct possibility from his actions. And manslaughter is more or less negligent homicide, where a death happens because the criminal didn't exercise due care.

Different states have different gradations of these, and some add more. But that's the general idea. Penalties for these differ. So negligent homicide in Arizona will get you 3.75 years, while first degree murder as a hate crime or of an operator or driver in California will get you life without parole.

I think pit bull kid deaths would generally fall in the manslaughter or negligent homicide categories. Those are definitely serious crimes, but they're not first degree murder and won't warrant the gas chamber.

The problem howard is that people who persuade themselves their pitbull arent dangerous are not even considering the risk because their dog is different and will never do it, the risk is low enough not to worry them, while the risk is high enough for others to worry about pit bulls.
It wouldnt make me feel better to think if my imaginary kid get mauled by that dog, it s no big deal since his owner will end up in jail or give me a ton of money.

Howard,

Dutch criminal law states it is illegal and punishable to not take enough measurements to make sure a dangerous animal one owns isn't capable of harming another. Case law shows that walking a pitbull without a lease qualifies as not taking enough measurements.

There's also almost no discussion that some dogbreeds are dangerous in the sense of the law. The government even tried to make sure pitbulls would be extinct by now. Sadly that failed, filling the dog shelters with unwanted pitbulls and staffordshires.

I don't know why pitbull owners should be, or are, an exception to the general idea that the criminal law can actually deter conduct. Sending the next fifty pitbull owners whose dogs kill someone to jail would, I suspect, change the nature of the debate here in USA#1 -- assuming, of course, that the sensationalist media covered those as news items.