Tweet
When can we be saved from this pitbull menace? Their hate and anger has started transfering to humans. Ever see 28 Days later? Yeah....prep for the end of the world.
An Eastside man was shot twice Sunday while trying to stop a pit bull attack on two neighborhood dogs, police said, and fell to the sidewalk as his children watched.
Authorities seek help
Michael Haynes Jr., 41, was in stable condition Sunday evening at Wishard Memorial Hospital after undergoing surgery to treat his chest wounds. Indianapolis metropolitan police continued to search for the shooter and the pit bull.
The children were in the Haynes' front yard with their small dog, Duchess, when the shooter was walking his dog north in the 1200 block of Tecumseh Street, neighbors and police said. One resident, Tracey Matthews, said the small dog from her next-door neighbor's home had gotten loose, and both dogs were being threatened by the pit bull.
The pit bull latched onto one of those dogs and wouldn't let go, police said. Haynes was trying to get that dog away from the pit bull, when a friend came out of the house wielding a rolling pin.
That's when, neighbors and police said, the dog-walker pulled a handgun from his waistband and said something like, "I told you not to touch my dog," before opening fire.
"The kids were hysterical,'' said neighbor Anita Graeser, a 25-year-old graduate student studying counseling at Christian Theological Seminary.
She took all five children, ranging in age from 2 to 10, into her house after the shooting.
The gunshots woke Graeser from a nap. She said Haynes' friend might have given the rolling pin to Haynes or tried to use it himself. The aftermath of the shooting was chaotic, she added, as the man with the dog quickly left north on Tecumseh.
Haynes' wife, Stacy, and a friend were trying to staunch the bleeding until police and paramedics arrived. Graeser watched the kids in the meantime. The youngest, she said, was shouting into his toy phone.
"He kept saying, 'Police! Come help my daddy!' "
Graeser described Duchess as a "Paris Hilton kind of dog." Matthews said the other dog, named Chewy, also is small, but she didn't know the breed.
Both neighbors said no one they talked to on the block knew the man or recalled having seen his pit bull before.
Last year, a pit bull attack on a toddler prompted the City-County Council to pass an ordinance aimed at increasing penalties on dangerous dogs of any breed.
However, after a series of incidents this year involving pit bulls attacking young children and adults and inflicting serious injuries, Mayor Bart Peterson said this month he had decided to ask his staff to investigate ways to ban pit bulls in the city.
Margie Smith-Simmons, spokeswoman for the mayor, said staffers still are investigating the ordinances of other cities that restrict or ban pit bulls.
"We want to be sure that whatever we put forward benefits the citizens of Indianapolis,'' she said. The mayor doesn't have a deadline, she said, but she expects a proposal will be released by late summer or early fall.
Graeser, meanwhile, hopes she can help the Haynes' children cope with the trauma. Her studies focus on helping people after devastating incidents, melding psychotherapy and faith-based counseling.
"They are going to need counseling,'' she said. While they were in her house, at least one of the children felt responsible -- because they didn't get out of the yard when their father told them to. "They said if their daddy died, it was their fault. I told them they were children, and none of it was their fault.''
Authorities seek help
Michael Haynes Jr., 41, was in stable condition Sunday evening at Wishard Memorial Hospital after undergoing surgery to treat his chest wounds. Indianapolis metropolitan police continued to search for the shooter and the pit bull.
The children were in the Haynes' front yard with their small dog, Duchess, when the shooter was walking his dog north in the 1200 block of Tecumseh Street, neighbors and police said. One resident, Tracey Matthews, said the small dog from her next-door neighbor's home had gotten loose, and both dogs were being threatened by the pit bull.
The pit bull latched onto one of those dogs and wouldn't let go, police said. Haynes was trying to get that dog away from the pit bull, when a friend came out of the house wielding a rolling pin.
That's when, neighbors and police said, the dog-walker pulled a handgun from his waistband and said something like, "I told you not to touch my dog," before opening fire.
"The kids were hysterical,'' said neighbor Anita Graeser, a 25-year-old graduate student studying counseling at Christian Theological Seminary.
She took all five children, ranging in age from 2 to 10, into her house after the shooting.
The gunshots woke Graeser from a nap. She said Haynes' friend might have given the rolling pin to Haynes or tried to use it himself. The aftermath of the shooting was chaotic, she added, as the man with the dog quickly left north on Tecumseh.
Haynes' wife, Stacy, and a friend were trying to staunch the bleeding until police and paramedics arrived. Graeser watched the kids in the meantime. The youngest, she said, was shouting into his toy phone.
"He kept saying, 'Police! Come help my daddy!' "
Graeser described Duchess as a "Paris Hilton kind of dog." Matthews said the other dog, named Chewy, also is small, but she didn't know the breed.
Both neighbors said no one they talked to on the block knew the man or recalled having seen his pit bull before.
Last year, a pit bull attack on a toddler prompted the City-County Council to pass an ordinance aimed at increasing penalties on dangerous dogs of any breed.
However, after a series of incidents this year involving pit bulls attacking young children and adults and inflicting serious injuries, Mayor Bart Peterson said this month he had decided to ask his staff to investigate ways to ban pit bulls in the city.
Margie Smith-Simmons, spokeswoman for the mayor, said staffers still are investigating the ordinances of other cities that restrict or ban pit bulls.
"We want to be sure that whatever we put forward benefits the citizens of Indianapolis,'' she said. The mayor doesn't have a deadline, she said, but she expects a proposal will be released by late summer or early fall.
Graeser, meanwhile, hopes she can help the Haynes' children cope with the trauma. Her studies focus on helping people after devastating incidents, melding psychotherapy and faith-based counseling.
"They are going to need counseling,'' she said. While they were in her house, at least one of the children felt responsible -- because they didn't get out of the yard when their father told them to. "They said if their daddy died, it was their fault. I told them they were children, and none of it was their fault.''
It's an easy way to ban them without banning them.
Comment