GARDEN CITY, Kan. (KSNW) — A Garden City family tells KSN their teenage son is still hurting after a neighbor’s dog broke through a fence and attacked him.
They say the dog should have been locked up and they are asking why police aren’t citing the owners for violating the city code.
“The dog ran through the hole in the fence and jumped onto me,” said Daniel Alegria, victim. “At first I thought the dog just wanted to play because it didn’t growl, it didn’t bark or anything. It just jumped on me, it just looked at me so I pet it a little bit.”
Fifteen-year-old Daniel Alegria was walking home on Tuesday when, he says, a greeting turned into an attack by his neighbor’s pit bull, saying the dog knocked him off of his feet and started biting his neck.
“It grabbed me. After that, I don’t really know what fully happened. All I know was I could feel its teeth in my head and I had to shove my hand in its mouth to pry it off.”
A neighbor rushed to help Daniel but his hand was injured. He says he has lost feeling in two of his fingers and he can’t straighten one of them.
Now he and his mother are asking questions about what legal action will be taken next.
Garden City’s vicious dog ordinance applies to any dog, including those “known as a pit bull”. It says that they must be “securely confined indoors, or in an enclosed and locked pen”, and when let out, must be “muzzled, restrained by a chain or leash… and under the physical control of a person.”
Daniel’s mother says she is concerned that no charges have been filed against the owner of the dog but says she doesn’t want the dog to be put down.
“The stereotype that pit bulls are bad dogs — they attack people — I think that’s nonsense,” said Amber Alegria. “All I want is the dog to get returned to its owner and I want to owner to fix the fence, [raise] the fence, and put it on a leash. That’s all I want.”
“Tthis has just been a lot for my son to have to go through and for me to see him go through.”
KSN reached out to the Finney County Humane Society but they referred questions to the Garden City Police. Despite repeated requests, nobody from the police department was available to comment.
We also reached out to the Finney County Attorney for more information but she was not available either. The pit bull’s owner was not home.
We still have questions about how the case is being handled and what is being done to prevent future attacks. We will give you updates as soon as we have them.Related links:
