thud. “There is no getting around the fact
that the attack has definitely changed our
lives,” John acknowledges.
For starters, the brothers both lacked
health-care insurance at the time of the incident, and the bill for the ambulance, helicopter, and hospital amounted to more than
$100,000. Increasingly strident letters have
been arriving from collection agencies, demanding payment (the bulk of Richard’s
medical expenses were eventually covered
by a state program for low-income patients;
as of mid-July, John had received some assistance from the hospital, but collection
agencies still hound him).
Meanwhile, after a quick start, the official
investigation of the incident slowed to a
frustrating crawl. On the night of the attack,
at the request of their owner (whose name
has not been released pending the on-going
investigation), county animal services officers euthanized four 7-month-old pit bulls
found near the scene of the attack. But then
the seemingly crystal-clear case of criminal
negligence turned murky.
“The laws concerning canine attacks can
be tricky,” says Berman, the dog trainer who
frequently testifies in court cases involving
dog attacks. “For criminal charges to be
brought, you have to prove criminal intent
or negligence, and even with a bad attack
like this one, that can be a pretty high bar for
prosecutors. For instance, maybe those
brothers happened to be running on private
property that was posted against trespassing.
If so, then it’s legal for the owner to keep
dogs on the property for protection.”
The case is further complicated by the
fact that the attack occurred on the edge of
the San Pasqual reservation, on which a
sovereign tribe lives. Law-enforcement ju-
risdiction on the reservation often proves
confusing and plodding. Samantha Brown’s
dog attack also occurred near reservation
land, and her mother claims that the inci-
dent was never investigated. By the same
token, Native Americans nationwide protest
that crimes reported on reservations are
routinely ignored by law-enforcement offi-
cials, which contributes to the epidemic of
serious crime, especially rape, blighting the
Indian nations.
