Pitbulls, part II

Of all days for this to happen it had to happen when I had family over. My family is kind of leery of my neighborhood to begin with but to be live on the scene when an 'incident' goes down does not help.

I had picked up my mother-in-law from the ferry terminal a little after 11; she came a few days before the baptism to help us get the house ready. Ryan and I really appreciate the help because getting the house up to snuff for company is always such a chore because we aren't so great with the maintenance cleaning. A little two hours after she arrived on the beautiful sunny day Gavin was in his room for a nap and the doggy was hanging outside enjoying the sun and people watching.

Soon the sounds of a dog fight broke the tranquility of passing cars, pedestrians and overhead air traffic. The fight was coming from across the street and was starting to sound pretty vicious. My MIL had the good sense to bring Kea in the house (we have a wimpy gate that Kea does not realize she can easily defeat but I'm sure a blood thirsty mean dog would have no trouble scaling it).

Once the dog fight ended the people fight began. I said I was going to see what was going on - Gavin was safe in the house with adult supervision so I grabbed my cell phone and yelled across the street, "I'm calling the cops!" Something that is not new to me these days.

I darted across the street to see the commotion as it was blocked from view by shrubbery and cars. There was a woman standing against her car and a man trying to console her and a huge crowd gathered at a distance watching everything. At this point I was on the phone with the police because the woman was yelling that she had been attacked by a dog.

The super grumpy dispatch officer who did not at all appreciate my phone call was asking me a bunch of questions I did not know the answers to.

Officer Grumpy: "Does the woman need medical attention?"
Me: "She doesn't appear to - she looks fine."

Officer G: "Are the dogs secure?"
Me, as I'm walking toward the woman: "Yeah, they are in cars. Oh, *&^^! There's a pit bull... oh wait, it's sleeping? No! It's dead."

Officer: "How did the dog die."
Me (for the millionth time): "Pardon?"
Officer: "Ma'am, can you please go somewhere where you can answer my questions?!"
Me: "There are people screaming at me and airplanes flying overhead. No." (Especially since one of he demands was that I stay there AND since he kept asking me questions I did not know the answers to.
Officer Grumpy: "How did the dog die."
Me: "I don't know, I'll go ask."

Me to man and woman: "I'm on the phone with the cops and they want to know how the dog died."
Man and woman both start yelling their story at me but mostly through me.
Me: "Please, I can't hear you. I just need this information for the cop."
Man to woman, "It's ok, calm down."

Man and woman proceed to tell me the story. The woman was sitting in her car with the windows rolled down eating lunch. She had her dog in the car, which appeared to be a pit bull as well, and was minding her own business when another pit bull tried attacking her through the open window of her car. I'm assuming it was trying to get to her dog.

This is where the story gets fuzzy for me. Apparently the woman was able to roll up her window to keep the dog off. A group of men who were smart enough to not get in the middle of a pit bull fight just stood there laughing at the scene. I think that is what a lot of the yelling was about afterwards. The woman was understandable livid that they just stood there - they could have at least grabbed a phone to call 911.

So, woman the is at least safe in her car but the pit bull is still out for blood and I guess there was a third pit bull involved by my eagle eye dog count. One dog in woman's car, one dog in someones truck and one dead dog in the parking lot with the owner sitting next to it.

When I asked the man how the dog died he started yelling again, "His dog attacked my dog, I had no choice but to kill it!" I then asked him again how he killed him - he stabbed the dog.

When I told the officer the man stabbed the dog he asked me if the people involved had weapons.
Me: "I don't see any."
Officer: "Does the man have a knife."
Me (in my head): "Duh. Yes! He has a knife - he just stabbed a dog to death. I don't think he went old school and broke a glass coke bottle and took the dog out that way."
Me: "I don't know. I don't see anything."
Officer Redundant: "Does he have a knife."
Me: "I don't know. I don't see anything." (As IF I'm going to ask a strange man whose adrenaline is pumping if he can show me his shiny knife possibly tainted with viscous dog blood).

Officer Grumpy: "Ma'am, can you tell me what you saw."
Me: "Nothing. I came running over after the dog fight and just saw people yelling. Can I go?"
Officer G: "No. Hold on... (starts talking to another dispatch about the knife, dead dog, weapon in question....) you got that?"
Me: "Who me? You talkin' to me?"
Officer G: "Nein!"
Me: "Can I go? The cops are here now."
Officer G: "Nein!"
Officer G finishes talking to the other people so I tell him another cop showed up so can I please leave now?
Officer G: "You need to talk to the officers before you leave."
Me: "OK, now can I go?"
Officer G: "You must talk to the officers first."
Me: "OK. I will talk to the officers but can I hang up now?"
Officer G (very grudgingly): "Yes."
Me. "Thanks. Bye." click. (actually it was more of a 'snap' since I was on my cell).

Newest officer on the scene was headed for a crowd of women to get their story so I ran over to him quickly to tell him my 2 cents so I could let him talk to actual witnesses and so I could leave already.

This officer had the idea since I didn't see a flippin' thing - he got my name and number and I told him I thought it was the same dude who was walking 3 pit bulls off leash a couple of weeks ago. And as if he was blind I pointed to the dead dog across the way and said, "Oh, that's the dead dog." He laughed and said, "Yeah, I didn't think he was really sleepy." It was my turn to chuckle, "OK, bye," and off I ran back to the house to fill in my mother-in-law of the viscous turn of events.

She asked if our plan for this house was still to just stay for a couple of years. I was like.... uh... I dunno... probably not. Sensing she was not liking that answer by the grimace I let her know I felt much safer in this neighborhood than I did in our old neighborhood which no one really voiced any concerns about.

Old neighborhood street vs. new street.

Old: One meth house (two doors down), at least one crack house, one resident crazy dude who would stand in his short, short robe and talk your ear off and tell you stories about "them awful cops" trying to set him up when they found a gun in his house (he was mentally unstable and made a few trips to the psych ward). Also the same dude who witnessed the grisly aftermath of a man who was shot with a shot gun after he stopped to help a man standing in the middle of the road less than a mile from our house - killed for no reason other than he stopped to help a crazy man late at night who was standing in the middle of the road.

New: Only a handful of neighbors, none of whom are cooking up meth or dishing out crack. The only murders I hear about are south on Rainier - which mostly occur after midnight. Solution: don't hang out on south of MLK on Rainier after midnight.

Also, in the old neighborhood we had a guy try to push his way into the house late at night when we started to open the door thinking it was our next door neighbor. My neighbor across the street had a young punk pull a gun on him and we had tons of stolen cars abandoned on our street. One neighbor always had at least two cars in various stages of assembly/disassembly in his front yard and at least one parked on the street. Same neighbor whose Latino porn pamphlets found their way from his pockets to the sidewalk. There were neighbors who let their dogs roam the street to pee and poop in our yard and of course the young punks who sped down the one way street and kids who rode those annoying loud scooter bikes for an hour or so on the weekends. Who wants to hear a crotch rocket zip up and down your street that is essentially a mini canyon with a hill on one side and houses on the other to effectively trap all sound? Grr. I hated those bikes - and the parents who allowed their kids to deafen everyone on the street.

Ryan didn't help allay his mother's fears when he got home from work. No, the plan is to stay here for a while. I go back and forth on wanting to move. Some days I think the house is too small or at least just poorly laid out for our growing family but then I like the proximity to downtown and the growing urban feel of the neighborhood. I really like being able to walk to get last minute groceries or to a coffee shop or park. I like the school that Gavin will be attending. It's going to be one of two language immersion schools in Seattle - everyone is going to try to get their kids into the school but we will have first dibs. Woo-hoo!

I really got off topic of the pit bulls. I think a law should be passed that would make it illegal to own a pit bull - grandfathered in would be people with pit bulls already - but as the pits died and breeding them was outlawed they would simply be no more. I hate aggressive dogs. Hate, hate, hate. I don't care how cute they are, you can't ignore all of the stories about pit bulls turning on their owners or attacking other people or pets to protect their owners.