Attack Dogs on the Loose After Theft of Truck

Nearly two dozen attack-trained dogs that broke free when a security company truck they were riding in was stolen and set ablaze last week may still be wandering around South Los Angeles, and sheriff’s investigators are looking for both the dogs and the two men who stole the truck.

“They’re not sissy dogs,” cautioned Sheriff’s Detective Mike Bornman of the Firestone Station.

The missing German shepherds, Doberman pinschers and Rottweilers, valued at $1,500 each, were among 37 dogs aboard the C&C; Sentry Dogs International truck when Torrey Payne was delivering the animals last week to businesses that they had been hired to protect, Bornman said.

Left Engine Running

Payne had parked the truck, with the engine running, to open the entrance gate at one business, Bornman said. As he was returning to the truck, he saw someone back it out of the driveway and speed off, with a second truck following.

Half an hour later, about five miles away, a caller told the security agency that its truck was on fire at 61st and Flower streets near a Harbor Freeway on-ramp. Investigators say the $25,000 vehicle had been torched.

Two dogs died in the flames. Payne rounded up 10 others running loose in the area, and neighbors turned in two more dogs the next day.

The other 23 are still missing, and company owner Samuel Payne says that while “some of them might be still wandering,” he thinks whoever stole the truck may have taken some of the dogs.

“We’ve been going from pound to pound” with no luck, he said. “It’s sort of dented our operation.”

Payne said he is angry not only at the loss of his dogs but at the risk to the community that the thieves created.

‘Approach Them With Fear’

“These dogs are like armed and dangerous,” he said. “You’ve got to approach them with fear,” and not just ‘ “Come here baby, baby.’ They are dangerous dogs. . . . They are aggressive animals.”

To anyone who spots one of the dogs, “don’t try to handle them yourself,” Payne warned; instead, call his company’s 24-hour number at (213) 756-1403 in Gardena or animal regulation officials.

Nine of the missing dogs are trained as “man-stoppers,” he said. “They will attack you.” Even pedestrians who saw the burning truck were “running, hollering, jumping over fences” as the frightened dogs got loose, Payne said.

City animal control officer John Clute said none of the 23 dogs, all wearing chains with C&C; identification tags, has been reported or turned in at his center. Because two of the dogs burned to death in the truck, animal regulation officers also plan to file charges of inhumane treatment of animals against anyone arrested in the case, he added.