Dog Who Attacked Man Given a Reprieve

Owners of a dog that was banned from the city of El Segundo in January after mauling a resident will be able to bring the dog home once it is retrained and neutered.

Captain Sinbad, an Alaskan malamute, was exiled from the community in January after the dog bit resident John McCarty. Under a city ordinance, the city could have sentenced the 95-pound dog to death, but city officials instead decided that Sinbad could remain alive so long as it was castrated and sent to an animal psychiatrist to be retrained. If a psychiatrist could guarantee that it would never bite again, the city would allow the dog to be released to a rural area.

Sinbad’s owner, Melinie Prosk, contested the city’s decision by filing a lawsuit. In May, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge found that the city’s reasons that the canine should not be returned to the city were not clear, and the case was sent back to the city for reconsideration.

Superior Court Judge Robert O’Brien concluded that some members of the City Council had wrongly conducted their own investigation of the incident and made their decisions based on those independent findings, so Prosk was not given a fair hearing, he said.

The city recently resolved the case after passing an ordinance that would give the Police Department the authority to hear the case.

After the hearing, the department found that the dog could return to the city as long as its owner was willing to accept the conditions outlined by the department to keep the community safe. “We’re glad to see that after the city had a proper presentation that there was no need to kill the dog,” said Michael Rotsten, Prosk’s attorney. “There is no real concern about this dog being dangerous.”

But McCarty, the dog attack victim, said he is angered by the city’s decision and concerned the dog will bite again. McCarty, 62, discovered the dog wandering in his neighbor’s yard, and was trying to read the dog’s tags when Sinbad attacked him, biting his wrists and leg.

“The owner lives 100 yards away from a school; if the dog gets out again there could be a massacre,” McCarty said.