Ohio’s vicious dog owners leave with his with disfigured attacks | Our opinion

• Mutilate a The 11 -year -old face that a first responsibility cannot say that she is a girl.
• Devour the legs of a cyclist, leaving it without a limb but with medical invoices greater than $ 1 million.
• Rob and guitarist of his ears, the index finger of the thumbs and the sensation of personal security outside his own four walls.

These stories are not hyperboles.

Newspaper research details the terror facing Columbus Avery Russell residents, the girl and the cyclist Eva SimonsMichael Palmer de Green, a guitarist, and others.

His attacks could have been avoided if Ohio’s laws were stronger. The laws must be strengthened to ensure that the horrors they experience are not visited here.

A cat owner who sought protection

Following the special newspaper report, representative Kevin Miller, a Newark Republican, is working on legislation that would give the guards of dogs more tools and would require euthanasia for dogs that kill or seriously inherit people.

Unfortunately, but understandably, Miller told the Office of the US Today Ohio’s network that he doubted to increase criminal sanctions.

The impulse for an augmented penalty was one of the conflict points more than a decade when Republican Bill Beagle, then a state legislator, and five others introduced reforms after two mixed mast malamage dogs owned by a neighbor attacked wildly Klonda Richey In her front courtyard while she took her garbage.

Richey, who had complained from the dogs to the Dog Director of Montgomery, looked for a protection order and installed a fence with the hope that he would keep his cats safe. His efforts were not enough.

Richey’s devastated 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 jail and a fine of $ 500 and three months in jail and a fine of $ 200 for not controlling dog charges.

A small child

The law must be put on the side of the victims and not for those who do not comply with the responsibilities of pet property.

Ohio legislators correctly rewritten the law more than a dozen years ago, putting the focus on “the breed” of canine. In doing so, without realizing it, he left lagoons that leave the Ohio vulnerable to vicious dogs and their owners.

It must be done more.

As recommended by the Ohio County Guardian Association, the State must create a public database of dangerous dogs records and abuse of serious crimes and establish training standards for all dog guardians.

Ohio’s law should also give prosecutors more maneuver to search for charges for serious crimes in cases of serious injuries, especially when there are evidence that the owners knew that the dogs were aggressive.

It has not yet been awarded, but Oscar KoonThe tragic case shows how absurd are the sanctions for dog owners in Ohio, particularly when it comes to children.

March 2A few days after the investigation of newspaper investigation was completed, the 8 -year -old boy was seriously injured by Two dogs near the house of Columbus of his family. The two Pit Bulls also attacked another dog and threw a neighbor seen in images of the body of the body Balance a shovel to defend them when the police arrived.

Oscar suffered serious injuries on his face and arms in the attack and is expected to need reconstructive surgery and physical and mental therapy.

“The boy was wrong,” says an officer who shot one of the dogs in the images of the body chamber. “They threw him into a cruise and took him to the children.”

The records show that the care and control of Franklin’s county animals investigated a June 22 incident that bit the dog in the dog owner’s house.

Three dogs, a dog called Luna and two that resemble the dogs that attack Oscar Koon in the images of the body of the body included, supposedly jumped a fence and began to fight against the dog of a man.

According to the records, Luna bit the hand of man while trying to break the fight. Luna was designated as a dangerous dog, but the records show charges against their owner were removed.

Tax of the city Zach Klein spokesman Pete Shipley He said to shipping This office did not proceed with that case because the injured man, a resident of a different state, did not appear in court.

In the attack involving Oscar, the office of the lawyer of the city of Columbus has presented charges for minor crimes against the owner of the dogs:

• Do not keep a dangerous dog confined or restricted
• Not to confine a dangerous dog
• Do not register a dangerous dog and show the registration label on the necklace
• Two lack of vaccination for rabies
• Two lack of confinement to a dog
• Three positions of lack of registration of a dog

If the city lawyer’s office demonstrates its case, the maximum sanctions, 30 days in jail and fines of up to $ 250 for the two charges of dangerous dogs and a fine of $ 25 to $ 100 for not limiting a dog, are insults to justice considering Oscar’s damage that has changed his life forever.

A gardener

There is an extremely high bar to arrive before a dog mauling case becomes a serious crime.

That was clear in the death of Jo Ann Echelbarger for the dogs of his neighbors while Jardinera in space between his condominiums. Her husband Stanley, 84 and suffered from Parkinson’s disease, could only look from the screen door while his wife was killed.

Dogs were known terrors in Ashville’s neighborhood.

A year before Echelbarger was mutilated, Apollo, one of the dogs owned by the mother and her son Susan and Adam Withers attacked neighbors Kimberlee Black And he shook Nemo, a goldndoodle puppy, like a “rabid.” The injuries were so serious that It had to be left.

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

That designation and documented history became important a year later, when Echelbarger was killed.

It allowed prosecutors to prosecute a grave -grade crime for not controlling a dangerous or vicious dog and serious crimes of involuntary homicide.

The police video reveals new details in the dog’s mauling of Joelbarger

An Ashville police officer who responded to a fatal attack for Dogs against Joelbarger, 73, asked several times if he should shoot the dog, video programs.

During the trial, prosecutors had to convince the jury members that the Withers were guilty of the violation of the Dog Law, which was a crime preached by the involuntary position of involuntary homicide. The two charges went hand in hand.

If the jury members were not convinced that the Withers had violated the dangerous dog law, they could not condemn them also for involuntary homicide.

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

The adult children of Echelbarger blame the system for their preventable death. They are right.

“I want responsibility for all those who were reckless in this situation. And I want my mother’s death to mean something.” Earlene Romine He told reporters from our newspapers. “I want it to help the community so that this does not happen to someone else. This can never happen again. This is the most horrible thing that a person could happen, especially a person as beautiful and wonderful as my mother.”

Legislators have their power to save lives and reduce the probability that Ohioans have to deal with the serious ramifications of vicious dog attacks.

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

It is not a matter of Yeah A vicious dog will attack again, it is when and which One of us will be a victim of these obvious deficiencies in Ohio’s law.

This publishing house was written by the editor of Compatible Opinion and Community engagement Amelia Robinson on behalf of the editorial board of Columbus’s office, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and Canton’s repository. The publishers are evaluations of importance issues based on facts for the communities we serve. These are not the opinions of the members of our informant staff, who fight for neutrality in their reports.