A pit bull by any other name is still a pit bull & just as deadly
BROOKLYN PARK, Minnesota––Covil Allen, age 3, of Champlin, Minnesota, attacked by a pit bull on July 19, 2024, died on July 26, 2024 after a week on life support.
Reported Paul Walsh for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “Natasha Palacios Vega and Charles Allen, parents of 3-year-old Covil Allen, have been preparing their son to be an organ donor, according to an online fundraising campaign launched to help the family cope with expenses.”
“WCCO obtained a search warrant with new details about what happened before and during the attack,” updated WCCO reporter Jason Rantala.
Hammers & pick axes
“According to that warrant, “There was going to be a sale of dogs taking place at the address,” on Brooklyn Park Boulevard in the city of Brooklyn Park, like Champlin a Minneapolis suburb, “right before the attack happened.
“Police said they believe the toddler and his family came to the home to buy a dog. When the two dogs began to attack, the warrant said, ‘There were adults in the area who started to defend the 3-year-old by using hammers and pick axes to get the dogs off.’
“Police said they shot both dogs involved in the attack,” Rantala said. “One dog died and the dog who survived was later put down.
“First responders arrived and gave immediate medical attention to the boy, who was taken by ambulance to the hospital with critical injuries.
Father says the killers were not pit bulls, but “American bulldogs”
“Police inspector Elliot Faust specified that the dogs are American bullies, a mix of pit bull and American bulldog,” Rantala continued. “Faust described these two as ‘the XL variety,’ and he added that ‘This breed is banned in the United Kingdom.”
Amber Ashley of Fox 9 television in Minneapolis offered a somewhat different version.
“Last Friday, Covil was in the backyard of a home in Brooklyn Park with his mother, Tasha, and older brother, Christian, to pick out a puppy,” Ashley said, “when he was attacked by two dogs – the puppy’s parents.
“Covil’s father, Chuck, explained that there has been misinformation about the incident, adding stress as they grieve. He clarified that the dogs involved were American bulldogs, not pit bulls,” paraphrased Ashley.
But an “American bulldog” is a pit bull, & always was
The actual misinformation, however, whether Chuck Allen knew it or not, was his statement, amplified by Ashley.
“American bulldogs” are in fact pit bulls, and always have been.
The pit bull brand names “American Bully,” “American Bulldog,” and variants of those names were introduced by American dogfighter John D. Johnson, who in a 2005 affidavit described how he crossed pit bulls with mastiffs to produce them.
(See “English bulldog”: two dog breeds, one name, & a rising body count.)
Testified Johnson, “The American bulldog is the same dog that was developed in England in the 12th century, by the meat packers, to catch large bulls.
“Kept our bulldogs in the large state”
“Later, they were registered as ‘English Bulldogs,’” Johnson averred. “They also were ‘pit’ fought over there [England], against each other, badgers, lions, and anything that would fight. They were brought over here in the 17th century.
After “England outlawed all types of [animal] fighting,” Johnson said, breeders “bred them down in size to the present ‘English bulldog.’
Johnson, however, “kept our bulldogs in the large state, and I have developed them even larger than the original,” he explained under oath.
How “American bulldogs” became “XL Bullies”
The “American bulldog” came to be known as the “XL Bully” after descendants of the Johnson line were sold to British breeders, who changed the dogs’ breed name to get around the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 ban on importing “American Pit Bull Terriers” into the United Kingdom.
The “XL Bully” name later bounced back to the U.S.
The “XL Bully” has also been banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 since the beginning of 2024, along with other pit bull variants including the Fila Brasiliero, Dogo Argentino, and Japanese Tosa.
“XL Bullies” are also now specifically banned in the Republic of Ireland.
(See Ireland bans XL Bully pit bulls; already restricted pits by 3 other names.)
Played with pit bull puppy in front of pit parents
Continued Ashley, “Tasha,” the victim’s mother, “immediately fought to free Covil from the attack before police arrived.
“Chuck explained that while Tasha and Christian were playing with a puppy, Covil was playing nearby. Tasha heard him scream and she and the dog’s owner immediately moved to intervene.
“By the time police and an ambulance arrived, Covil had been separated from the dogs, and CPR was being attempted. The dogs were put down to remove Covil from the backyard safely.
“Covil suffered a fractured skull, jaw, collarbone, vertebrae, and a punctured lung. Tasha has had two surgeries on her right calf due to her own dog bite injuries and is awaiting a third surgery.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Previous Brooklyn Park pit bull attacks
Added Ryan Pattee and Joe Mazan of KSTP television in St. Paul, Minnesota, “Brooklyn Park police are reporting another child was injured in a second dog attack in the city in less than a week,” a seven-year-old girl who was attacked by a pit bull on July 24, 2024.
That victim “received superficial injuries,” Pattee and Mazan reported, but “While officers attempted to secure the dog, they said the animal attempted to attack another child. Officers said they killed the dog, and the incident is still under investigation.”
Fifteen months earlier, on April 10, 2023, a 9-year-old Brooklyn Park girl was sent to a hospital with head injuries from an attack by her own family’s pit bull in their back yard.
Police also shot that pit bull to end the attack.
Said Brooklyn Park Police inspector Elliot Faust, “One of the common denominators that we have responded to is the breed of the animal. The breed of the animal in all these cases has been a pit bull.”
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Thank you for weathering the hate and misinformation from fighters, breeders and apologists from the industry of deniers who foist these dogs off on a gullible public.
I really love and appreciate your articles but I wish you would provide footnotes or other ways to reference what is stated in them. In this case, I would love to read the entire Johnson affidavit and the contents of the search warrant. If they’re available when you’re researching your posts, could you provide links? I know it’s already a lot of work to do these and I refer to them all the time.
The J.D. Johnson affidavit is currently most easily accessible at https://www.dogsbite.org/pdf/johnson-scott-declaration.pdf.
Search warrants are rarely made accessible online. In this case, local reporters Paul Walsh and Jason Rantala, both quoted, apparently obtained copies of the warrant in person from the Brooklyn Park Police. Walsh and Rantala quoted the same operative statements from the search warrant, probably because those statements were more detailed and specific than warrants usually are.
Search warrants practically by definition tend to be terse, usually only two or three sentences, because they are normally a legal instrument used to obtain evidence, not constituting evidence in themselves.
What a warrant does is simply state cause for a search and seizure or impoundment of evidence: “such-and-such incident was reported at this address. Evidence pertaining to this incident may be found there.” Such evidence is not normally described in detail, because whatever it may be has not been found yet.
…and if these dogs, by whatever name, had not been in existence, all of the humans involved would likely still be alive. Their deaths were preventable, senseless, and unjustifiable.
Sharing with gratitude and exasperation. As ever, ya just can’t fix stupid.
This is another among the many ANIMALS 24-7 informative and concise articles.
“Played with pit bull puppy in front of pit parents.” Not a good idea to allow youngsters to do that with any breed, unsupervised. Such a tragic outcome.