Lack of Evidence Cited : No Charges Planned in Dog Attack on 2 Children

The city attorney’s office has decided not to file criminal charges against a Sylmar man whose dog mauled a 3-year-old Sylmar boy and his 2-year-old sister on Oct. 29.

“We do not feel there is enough evidence to prove a criminal act beyond a reasonable doubt,” Deputy City Atty. Jessica Silver said Wednesday.

The dog, a Staffordshire terrier, leaped on the children and bit them, causing injuries that hospitalized both children, said Lt. Robert Pena of the East Valley Animal Shelter. The boy required 28 stitches on his head and neck, and the girl underwent surgery to repair facial nerve damage, he said.

The dog attacked the boy and girl, who were walking with their grandmother, after it dug a hole beneath a fence at a house in the 13000 block of Gridley Street, Pena said.

A Roto-Rooter serviceman who was driving by stopped and sprayed the dog with Mace, then pulled the two children and the woman into the van.

Pena said interviews with neighbors of the dog’s owner, whose name was not released, “found no evidence of any criminal misconduct.”

Two city ordinances under which the owner might have been prosecuted, Silver said, make it an infraction to have a dog unleashed in public areas and a misdemeanor to allow a vicious animal to be unrestrained.

Pena said his investigation found that the dog, a type of pit bull, had not been allowed to go unleashed outside the yard.

After the incident, the owner requested that the dog be destroyed because of the severity of the attack, Pena said.

The attack prompted Councilman Howard Finn to propose last month that the city require special registration of dog breeds with a predilection for violence. The proposal is being studied by a council committee.