Feb. 27, 2023 San Antonio firefighters had to use poles and other tools to get to the patients.
By Taylor Pettaway, Jacob Beltran Source San Antonio Express-News (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Feb. 24—An elderly man is dead and his wife is in critical condition after the couple was mauled by dogs in a West Side neighborhood Friday afternoon.
San Antonio police said Friday evening that they had arrested Christian Alexander Moreno, 31.
Moreno is facing charges of attack by dangerous dog, causing death, and injury to an elderly person, the San Antonio Police Department said in a Facebook post. Both are felony charges. No further information about Moreno was provided.
First responders were called to the 2800 block of Depla just before 2 p.m. for reports of a dog attack. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they could see an 81-year-old man being dragged by a dog, and firefighters could see the man was “completely bloody before they even got out of the truck,” Fire Chief Charles Hood said.
The firefighters had to repel the dogs with pickaxes and poles in order to get to the man.
His wife, 74, also was mauled, officials said.
In addition to the couple, a relative of the couple was bitten, according to a city news release. A fire department captain also was bitten in the leg during the altercation, officials said.
All four people were taken to the hospital, where the 81-year-old died, the city news release said. The other three are still under medical care, it added.
“No one expects to go out and fight dogs in the way they did today,” Hood said. “It was a horrific scene, horrific for the people who had to experience it and for the firefighters who were part of the rescue who had to save themselves and these people attacked today.”
Officers with Animal Care Services learned that three Staffordshire terriers, a type of pit bull, who lived at a nearby property had become untethered and left the yard they were kept in. Witnesses said the dogs had broken through the front gate, according to the city news release.
At least two of the dogs attacked the couple as they got out of their vehicle, according to the release. The two were visiting a resident in the house next to dogs’ home, the police said.
Video taken by an unidentified resident shows one dog attacking the man while other dogs stand nearby in an aggressive posture.
ACS took custody of all three dogs. They will be euthanized, according to the city news release. Multiple charges are pending, it added.
This is not the first time ACS has been called to that property for reports of a dog bite.
At least two of the dogs were involved in “confirmed bite cases” in January and also in September 2021, according to the city news release. The injuries in those cases were described as “moderate or mild,” and the individuals involved “declined to file a dangerous dog designation,” the release said. The animals were returned to their owner after a quarantine period in accordance with state law.
A dangerous dog designation would have imposed several requirements, including that the owners keep the animals in a secured enclosure, get a $100,000 liability insurance policy and muzzle the dogs when they were outside. Special warning signs also would have been required.
In addition to the bite cases, ACS has been called to the property several times in the last two years for calls about neglect, aggression and loose animals, ACS Director Shannon Sims said.
Silvia Hernandez, whose family lives across the street from the pit bulls’ owners, said the residence has a history of aggression. She said her brother was bit by the dogs in 2021 and that the owners did not face any consequences.
“The owners don’t care. The problem are the owners who use these dogs as a form of protection and they make these dogs more aggressive. Dogs will be however you train them to be,” Hernandez said. “There is not enough accountability on the owners.”
Hernandez was at the scene after her mother, who lives with her brother, called in a frantic state during the attack. Worried that her mother was the one being attacked, Hernandez rushed to the Depla residence and was met by a chaotic and bloody scene.
“It shouldn’t have gotten to this point,” she said.