Ohio vicious dog owners are moving away from disfigure attacks Our opinion

Over 17,000 people are attacked by dogs in Ohio for a year bad enough to require medical assistance or police intervention. But these are just the reported cases.

USA Today Network Ohio Editorial panels
| Columbus Dispatch

Coșmar dog attacks, such as those who claimed Jo Ann Echelbarger’s life, 73 years old in Ashville, in October and the 57 -year -old Dayton residence, Klonda Richey, in 2014.

But these are much more than simple tragedies.

Inefficient dog from ohio The laws failed them and many unseen ohioans are sufficiently lucky to survive a mauling. Many of those who survive require years of surgery, Battle PTSD and accumulate huge medical invoices.

As a recent investigation, USA Today Network Ohio revealed Our current law of dangerous dogs Parts with irresponsible dog owners and even allow a person’s vicious dogs.

The law requires a dog to be euthanized if he kills a second person.

In these cases, the owner may face an offense of the fourth degree.

In most other cases – included in Cechelbarger – the prosecutors must climb mountains to reach charges.

Corrections like those promised by a Licking the county of the court They have been late for a long time, but they are still insufficient to protect the ohioans.

The investigation by the journalists from Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beac Journal and Canton Repository have found that penalties for vicious dog owners are rarely more than the tax you will pay for a speed ticket. And there is little appetite to grow them.

The victims could be anyone.

A little girl, a cyclist and a guitarist

Over 17,000 people are attacked by dogs in Ohio for a year bad enough to require medical assistance or police intervention. But these are just the reported cases. There is no way to know how many of these attacks are minor or how severe. That should change.

We know that the most serious cases leaves victims permanently disfigured and traumatized.

The alarming failures of the Ohio laws mean that the unprovocated dogs of any race can do any of the following with few legal consequences for their owners:

Mutilate one The 11-year-old face so bad that a first-deputy cannot say that she is a little girl.
Devour The feet of a bicyclist, Leaving it without limbs, but with medical invoices exceeding $ 1 million.
Rob a machine And the guitarist of his ears, his finger finger and the feeling of personal safety outside his four walls.

These stories are not hyperboles.

The newspaper investigation detailing the terror faced by Residents Columb Avery Russell, the little girl and the cyclist Eva SimonsMichael Palmer from Green, a guitarist and others.

Their attacks could have been avoided if the Ohio laws were stronger. The laws must be consolidated to ensure that the horrors they have experienced are not visited here.

A cat owner who looked for protection

Following the special report of the newspapers, Rep. Kevin Miller, R-Newark, works on the legislation that would provide several tools for dog guards and require euthanasia for dogs who kill or hurt people.

Unfortunately, but to understand, Miller told the USA Today Network Ohio Bureau that he hesitated to increase criminal sanctions.

The pressure for an increased punishment was among the bonding points more than a decade ago, when Republican Bill Beagle, then a state parliamentarian, and five others introduced reforms after two dogs with mixed matter held by a neighbor attacked Klonda Richey In her front yard, while she took off her garbage.

Richey, who complained of dogs at the dog guard in Montgomery county, looked for a protective order and installed a fence in the hope that she will keep her and her cats safe. Her efforts were not enough.

Richey’s bloody bloody body was found in the snow in front of his house.

Andrew Nason and Julie Custer, the couple who owned the dogs, were sentenced to five months in prison and a fine of $ 500 and three months in prison and a fine of $ 200 for non -observance of dog taxes.

A little boy

The law should join the victims and not to those who do not meet the ownership of pets.

Ohio parliamentarians rightly rewritten the law more than a dozen years ago, emphasizing “the deed, not the canine”. By doing this, inappropriately, he left gaps that leave the ohioans vulnerable to the vicious dogs and their owners.

More must be done.

As recommended by the Association of Dog Guardians in Ohio County, the state should create a public database with dangerous records for dogs and abuse of criminal animals and set training standards for all dog guards.

The Ohio law should also provide prosecutors with more freedom to request accusations of crime in cases of serious injuries, especially when there are proof owners knew that dogs are aggressive.

Has not yet been judged but Oscar KoonHis tragic case shows how absurd penalties for dog owners in Ohio – especially when it comes to children.

On March 2Just a few days after reporting for the newspaper investigation was complete, the 8 -year -old was critically injured by Two dogs near the Columbus House of his family. The two pitburi also attacked another dog and cried at a neighbor seen on the movies of the body camera Balancing a shovel to keep them while the police arrived.

Oscar has suffered serious face and arms injuries and is expected to need reconstructive surgery and physical and mental therapy.

“The child got sick,” says an officer who shot one of the dog movies. “They threw him into a cross and took him to children.”

The records show that the care and control of animals in Franklin County have investigated a dog bite incident on June 22 at the dog’s owner’s house.

Three dogs – a dog named Moon and two resembling dogs that attack Oscar Koon in the body photographing materials – would have jumped a fence and started fighting with a man’s dog.

According to the records, the moon bitten the man’s hand as he tried to separate the fight. The moon was designated as a dangerous dog, but the records show that the accusations against its owner were abandoned.

Zach Klein City Lawyer Ptee Shipley’s spokesman said the shipment This office did not proceed with this case, because the injured man, a resident of a different state, did not appear in court.

In the attack involving Oscar, prosecutor Columbus City filed charges against the dog owner:

The failure to maintain a dangerously limited or restricted dog
Failure to limit a dangerous dog
Non -compliance with a dangerous dog and displaying the recording label on the collar
Two accusations of failure to vaccinate for rabies
Two allegations of failure to limit a dog
Three allegations of failure to record a dog

If the city lawyer’s office proves its case, maximum penalties – 30 days of imprisonment and fines of up to $ 250 for the two dangerous dogs for dogs and a fine of 25 to $ 100 for the failure to limit a dog – are insulting to justice, given the damage made Oscar that has changed.

A gardener

There is an extremely high bar to reach a case of dogs to become a crime.

This was clear in the death of Jo Ann Echelbarger by the dogs of his neighbors, while she gained in the space between their apartments. Her husband Stanley, 84 years old and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, could only watch from the screen door while his wife was killed.

The dogs were known terror in the Ashville neighborhood.

A year before Echelbarger is convicted, Apollo, one of the dogs held by his mother and son Susan and Adam Withers attacked him the neighbor Kimberlee Black And he shook Nemo, a golden puppy, like a “ragdoll”. The lesions were so severe that had to be taken down.

The dog guard has appointed Apollo as a dangerous dog, which has triggered additional requirements for Withers.

This designated designation and history became important a year later, when Echelbarger was killed.

He allowed the prosecutors to pursue an accusation of a fourth -degree offense for the failure to control a dangerous or vicious dog and accusations of involuntary murder.

Police video reveals new details in the dog of Jo Echelbarger

A police officer in Ashville who responded to a fatal dog’s fatal attack on Jo Echelbarger, 73, has asked several times if he had to shoot the dog, video shows.

During the trial, the prosecutors were forced to convince the jurors that Withers were guilty of violating dog law, which was a preached offense for the accusation of involuntary murder. The two fees went hand in hand.

If the jurors had not convinced that Withers had violated the dangerous law of dogs, he could not condemn the murder.

It is an example of how complicated it is to condemn someone of crime in a vicious case of dog attack.

Echelbarger’s adult children blame the system for her prevented death. Are right.

“I want responsibility for all those who have been reckless in this situation. And I want my mother’s death to mean something.” Romanian Earlene He told journalists in our newspapers. “I want to help the community so that this does not happen to someone else. This can never happen again. This is the worst thing a person could go through, especially a person as beautiful, wonderful as my mother.”

The parliamentarians have in their power to save lives and reduce the likelihood that the ohioans have to do with the terrible branches of vicious dog attacks.

Laws must put the safety of innocent persons and pets above the vicious dogs and their reckless owners.

Is not a matter of if A vicious dog will attack again, it is When and which One of us will fall the victim of these clear inadequacy near Ohio.

This editorial was written by a Shipping Opinion and Editor of Community involvement Amelia Robinson on behalf of the editorial board of the editorial board of Columbus dispatcher, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and Canton Warehouse. Editorials are evaluations based on facts of importance problems for the communities we serve. These are not the opinions of the members of our reporting personnel, who strive for neutrality in their reporting.