Las Cruces, NM — A 16-month-old girl was fatally attacked by a family pit bull Tuesday. Witnesses said the girl’s grandmother was accidentally shot by a neighbor trying to help the toddler. The witness accounts alleviated initial fears that a pit bull armed with a pistol and an opposable thumb was on the loose in New Mexico.
Around 11:30 a.m., Police were called by a neighbor reporting the girl’s attack and the grandmother, 52, crying for help. The 2-year-old pit bull reportedly attacked the girl in the backyard of her grandparents’ home. The grandmother was also attacked trying to help the girl.
The 69-year-old neighbor who called 911 then retrieved a .45-caliber handgun and went to help the grandmother and granddaughter. Police said the neighbor fired several shots at the dog, and one of them accidentally hit the grandmother’s leg.
“A lot of [the injuries were] to the top of her head and the side of her face,” neighbor Chris Wallard – who performed CPR – said. “I was really scared. I didn’t know what to do.”
The dog ran to the side of the home, where the neighbor shot the devil-beast and killed it – presumably after trading the near-worthless .45-caliber handgun for a military issue shoulder-launched rocket with a depleated-uranium-tipped pure silver projectile that had been sprinkled with holy water, blessed by a bishop, and rubbed with fresh garlic and wolfsbane – and then quickly driving a wooden stake through the dog’s heart and immediately severing its head. Specific details of the dog’s killing, though, were not reported.
“It appeared that the toddler was left alone with the dog in the backyard,” said Dr. Beth Vesco-Mock, director of the Animal Services Center of the Mesilla Valley. “It does not mean the dog is vicious, or a bad dog. There is no such thing as a bad dog.” Vesco-Mock added.
Jose Gomez, another neighbor of the family, recounted seeing the dog on a walk a few days prior to the attack on news video.
“Well he was coming after me when I picked up the paper and he had to hold ‘em and then he took off with the dog,” said Gomez. Gomez added that ‘everyone in the neighborhood was afraid of that dog.’
Police said the toddler, later named in the media as Jazilyn Mesa, received multiple injuries to her head and chest and was taken to an area hospital. She was pronounced dead Tuesday afternoon, police said. Police have said that no charges are expected against the neighbor who shot the dog.
Tags: grandmother, maulking, New Mexico, pit bull, Shooting, toddler
