All four men were alone & apparently unarmed when pit bulls killed them
BLYTHEVILLE, Arkansas––The August 15, 2023 death of Jeane Bennett, 93, the 40th U.S. dog attack fatality of the year and the 34th killed by pit bulls, broke a streak of four consecutive fatal attacks on healthy adult males.
Both the total number of fatal dog attacks and the number of pit bull fatalities would have been new records for a full year as recently as 2019, but the current records are now 62 and 43, respectively.
Healthy adult males are, as a demographic category, the individuals least likely to die by dog attack, but all four male victims were alone and apparently unarmed when attacked.
As the data on fatal and disfiguring dog attacks logged by ANIMALS 24-7 since 1982 demonstrates, when bully breeds tear into a victim caught alone, the odds favor mayhem.
The four male victims were Joseph Taylor Keeton, 56, of Des Chutes County, Oregon; Demarcus “Sam” McKenzie II, 27, of Skipperville, Alabama; Bob Northrop, 71, of Ocean View Estates, Hawaii; and Patrick Conley Sr., 68, of Tyrone Township, Michigan.
Jeane Bennett survived mauling injuries for two and a half months
Attacked in her Blytheville, Arkansas yard on June 3, 2023, more than a month before any of the four men were killed, Jeane Bennett fought for her life at the Regional One Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee for two and a half months before succumbing to complications of her injuries.
Sergeant Robin Haught-Angel of the Blytheville Police Department said in a media release that officers “found Bennett with her family in the backyard of her home with multiple bite wounds on her face and extremities. Police said the wounds were severe enough to expose the bone,” recounted Imani Williams of the KAIT K8 Newsdesk.
“Officers began providing first aid including the application of tourniquets,” Haught-Angel described.
“Witnesses reported hearing a scream from family members and went to their aid. They reported three large pit bull dogs from next door were in the yard being aggressive and attacking the victim. The witnesses were able to fight the pit bulls off and get them back into their fenced yard.”
(LinkedIn photo)
Pit bull owner charged
All three pit bulls reportedly had blood on them. Police shot two of the pit bulls to secure the scene. The third pit bull was later euthanized by a veterinarian.
Police on August 16, 2023 “arrested David Veasey, 43, of Blytheville, as the owner of the dogs,” Williams continued.
Veasey was charged with two counts of felony aggravated assault, two counts of unlawful dog attack, and “various violations of city ordinance,” Williams finished.
Bond for Veasey was set at $100,000.
Was this the same man?
A man named David Veasey, then 26, who would now be the age of the Blytheville pit bull owner, was arraigned in April 2007 in Little Rock, Arkansas on “possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver, possession of drug paraphernalia, criminal use of another person’s property to facilitate a crime, and aggravated assault,” reported Stacy Hudson of Arkansas Online.
That David Veasey and another man were injured by police gunfire during an altercation preceding the arrests of six people altogether, including that Veasey, on identical sets of initial charges.
Homeless man fatally mauled at “Dirt World”
The streak of adult male pit bull victims who were attacked while alone began with Joseph Taylor Keeton, 56, mauled by three pit bulls at a homeless encampment called “Dirt World,” on Juniper Ridge, near Bend, Oregon.
Jessica Rae Charity, 38, owner of the three pit bulls and also a “Dirt World” resident, “assisted in crating the offending dogs and is cooperating with the investigation,” the Des Chutes County Sheriff’s Office said in a media statement, adding that Charity might be criminally charged after an investigation. As of August 19, 2023, Charity does not appear to have actually been charged, at least not yet.
“In the early hours of July 19, 2023,” Keeton’s surviving family members explained in a GoFundMe appeal for burial expenses, “our father was violently killed. He was mauled for a prolonged period of time. He suffered greatly. The savage nature of his death highlights the vulnerabilities that homeless people face.
Who was Joseph Taylor Keeton?
“After struggling with drug abuse at an early age,” the family members said, Keeton “began attending church, where he met his future wife.”
Together, they raised three daughters.
However, prescribed oxycontin for a back injury, Keeton again “became addicted, and within a year or two, had abandoned his family in search of the relief that only opiates could provide,” the survivors said.
The survivors concluded by asking those who read their appeal to “Please take a moment to educate yourselves on the truth about pit bull breeding and ownership, mental illness, and drug addiction.”
Keeton was killed a year to the day after he was booked for criminal trespass in Des Chutes County.
(Facebook photo)
Demarcus “Sam” McKenzie II
Demarcus “Sam” McKenzie II, 27, of Skipperville, Alabama, an unincorporated community of under 550 human residents, was mauled so badly on July 29, 2023 that investigating officers initially thought he had been shot in the head.
Home security video cameras in the area, however, established that McKenzie II was accosted by the first of the dogs, including pit bulls, who killed him moments after he left his home.
“McKenzie II attempted to run away from the dog, but then 2-3 more dogs joined in on the pursuit, which forced McKenzie II to trip and fall near the base of his driveway,” said Dale County Sheriff Mason Bynum.
More dogs arrived, until eventually “a pack of 5-6 dogs are seen violently attacking and mauling McKenzie II to death as he was trying to stand up,” Bynam added.
Elizabeth A. Dobbs of Skipperville had posted a warning on Facebook on March 11, 2023 about “three dogs running in a pack that have found their way into mine and my father’s fenced in yards. They have killed one of our cats, an opossum, and my dad’s two rabbits just this week,” Dobbs said, posting with her warning a photograph showing an Akita, a pit bull, and a third large dog of indeterminate breed.
Robert “Bob” Northrop
Retired construction worker and animal rescuer Robert “Bob” Northrop, 71, of Ocean View Estates, Hawaii, near the south end of the Big Island [Hawaii Island], “was walking to a friend’s house when four dogs attacked him,” daughter Shannon Matson told Max Rodriguez of KHON2.
Matson is also involved in animal rescue efforts following the August 10-11, 2023 firestorm that razed Lahaina, on Maui, the next island north.
“Just a few days before Northrop was attacked,” explained Rodriguez, “Shannon Matson spoke at a community task force meeting about the ongoing and dangerous problem of loose and rogue dogs in her neighborhood.”
Said Matson, “My dad mentioned numerous times that walking in his neighborhood didn’t feel very safe and that there were dogs who were frequently on the loose. He adopted a few stray cats, and he said that one of his cats was killed by some of the neighborhood dogs.”
Witness “chased the dogs off & called 911.”
Continued Rodriguez, “A witness said he saw Northrop being attacked in the roadway by four large dogs. The witness chased the dogs off and called 911.
Found unconscious, Northrop died en route to Kona Community Hospital.
“Police said the dogs’ owners were not home during the attack,” Rodriguez reported.
“The owners have since surrendered those dogs, along with a litter of 10 puppies, to the Hawaii County Animal Control & Protection Agency.
“Police opened a ‘negligent failure to control a dangerous dog’ case — which is now considered a felony crime,” Rodriguez said, adding that “If convicted, the dogs’ owners could face up to 10 years in prison, a $25,000 fine, and the dogs could be euthanized.
“The owner surrendered all four dogs and a litter of 10 puppies to animal control.”
New animal control agency
Police did not identify the owner who was charged, but ANIMALS 24-7 found a sometime Ocean View Estates resident named Chris Kelau, of various relatively nearby addresses, whose Facebook postings indicated that he had recently possessed approximately the right numbers of pit bulls and pit bull puppies. Kelau appears to be breeding pit bulls for sale.
Northrop was killed just a month to the day after Hawaii County Animal Control became a stand-alone agency under the Mayor’s office, with an initial annual budget of $4 million and 40 new positions to fill.
At the time Northrop was attacked, the agency had reportedly hired nine animal control officers.
County-level felony penalty
Hawaii County introduced a felony penalty for dog attacks, explained John Burnett of the Hawaii Tribune-Herald, “because of an incident in August 2021, when 85-year-old Hawaiian Paradise Park resident Dolores Oskins was mauled by three unrestrained dogs [pit bulls] belonging to a neighbor. Oskins, who suffered critical injuries, died at Hilo Medical Center on September 5, 2021, 24 days after the attack.
“This is the second dog attack being investigated under the new law,” Bennett added. “On May 27, 2023, 32-year-old Amber Clausen was attacked by a neighbor’s dog on her Ainaloa Estates property. The attack,” the third time the same pit bull had attacked Clausen, left her “with both arms broken and multiple puncture wounds and lacerations. Clausen’s 52-year-old mother,” also injured by the pit bull, “suffered injuries less severe than her daughter’s, according to police.”
The pit bull owners, Bennett updated, “52-year-old Frederick Kassebeer and his wife, Kazzy Kassebeer, pleaded not guilty on July 11, 2023 in Hilo Circuit Court to negligent failure to control a dangerous dog and permitting a dog to stray.
“Their next court hearing is scheduled for September 29, 2023 before Judge Peter Kubota.”
Patrick Conley Sr.
Animal control deputies with the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office on August 2, 2023 discovered the most recent of the string of fatal dog attacks on men alone when they visited a house in rural Tyrone Township, “serving the homeowner,” Patrick Conley Sr., “a court notice issued by the 53rd District Court for a show-cause hearing.”
Conley’s dog, local podcaster Jon King revealed, “had recently been involved in an attack incident” causing a neighbor “extremely serious injuries. The dog was identified as a mastiff mix breed,” believed to be a Cane Corso or American Bully XL, both pit bull variants.
“While attempting to make contact at the residence,” King continued, the deputies found the dog mauling Conley’s body in a cow pasture near the house.
“Due to the dog’s aggressive behavior toward the victim and responding emergency personnel,” King added, the dog was shot at the scene.
“It wasn’t like the dog was running around terrorizing the neighborhood.”
Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy told media that the dog attack on the neighbor came on June 23, 2023, but was not reported until the July 6, 2023, two weeks later.
Explaining why the deputies did not visit Conley sooner, Sheriff Murphy said, “That would have been outside the quarantine time, because you can only quarantine a dog for 10 days. Secondly, it wasn’t like the dog was running around terrorizing the neighborhood.”
Summarized King, “Murphy said the man bitten in the original incident was a neighbor of the dog owner, who he says was over to the house when the dog got out of his truck and bit him. He adds that the now-deceased dog owner’s property is completely fenced in, so unless someone climbed over the fence, there was no danger.”
Unless of course the dog jumped out, or broke through a gate.
Concluded King, “Additionally, Murphy says for those wondering why it took so long to obtain a court order and serve it, they had to contend with the fact that the dog’s owner was less than cooperative, making the due process part of their investigation that much more difficult.”
(Facebook photo)
Indictments in Ramon Najera death
Meanwhile in Texas, wrote Raquel Torres for San Antonio Report on August 17, 2023, “Six months after the deadly mauling of Ramon Najera, the owners of the dogs that killed the 81-year-old veteran and injured his wife in February 2023 have been indicted, the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office announced.
“Christian Moreno and his wife, Abilene Schneider, each face two felony charges. The pair are charged with failing to restrain their dangerous dogs, causing an attack causing death, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. They also face charges of causing bodily injury to the elderly, punishable by up to two years in prison.”
(See Pit bull mauling death of Ramon Najera, 81, shocks San Antonio.)
Nathaniel Posey
Charging Kathleen Taylor, 35, with negligent manslaughter for allowing her three pit bulls to kill Nathaniel Posey, 63, on February 24, 2023, by comparison took Escambia County, Florida, only two and a half months.
Finally arrested on May 1, 2023, Taylor is reportedly being held without bond in the Escambia County Jail. The negligent manslaughter charge is a second-degree felony.
Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons told media that Taylor owned the property where the attack took place, as Posey walked with a female friend near his trailer home.
The female friend, who lived at a nearby home, called 911 and was able to scare away the pit bulls near the end of the attack, Simmons indicated.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Pit bull owner Taylor absconded
Sheriff’s deputies shot one pit bull at the scene. Another was captured nearby the next day.
Pensacola television station WKRG reported the arrest affidavit that deputies saw Posey “lying on the ground with both ears detached, along with his nose and left eye detached.”
Taylor allegedly screamed that the pit bulls were not hers, but then dragged one pit bull into her car and sped away.
Taylor surrendered the third pit bull later in the week, but again absconded.
Taylor, who had reportedly been cited 17 times for pit bulls running at large, but whose dogs had no reported bite history, was arrested on April 17, 2023 for drug possession.
Released the next day on $5,000 bond, Taylor was finally apprehended for Posey’s death two weeks after that.
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l believe any animal can be aggressive if put under certain circumstances,these and many others have remarkable strength and need a lot of care and supervision.These dogs always need training.
While it is true that any animal can be dangerous under stress, the threshold of stress that triggers a pit bull is often below human perception. For instance, fatal pit bull attacks have allegedly been triggered by scents and sounds that humans could not detect, and have verifiably been triggered by a range of inconsequential ordinary everyday human motions and gestures. This inbred hair trigger reactivity makes a pit bull inherently unsafe under any circumstance.
Pitbull type dogs should be exterminated for the safety of the public.
Why?
Well, let’s look at a case example
Saudi Arabia has ZERO cases of fatalities involving pit bulls killing humans.
Many the fatalities in Saudi Arabia involve people’s heads being decapitated with swords which have been violently swung.
It is my opinion that this manner of death is preferrable to a prolonged and vicious killing at the hands of an out of control pit bull.
Each to their own, I guess.