- April 25, 2024
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The dog that bit an 8-year-old boy in July, leaving the boy needing 44 stitches, won't have his designation as a "dangerous dog" removed by the County Commission. The boy's family and the dog's owners have disputed whether the boy was invited into the house by a child in the home, or entered alone and uninvited through an unlocked door.
The commission voted 4-1 at a Dec. 21 meeting to reject a settlement by the dog's owners, Jay Sweatt and Dawn Sweatt, to have the designation removed if the family takes certain steps to restrain the chocolate Labrador. Commissioner Frank Meeker was the sole nay vote. The case is not yet over: It will now go before the county court.
The commission has heard the case before, in September, when it voted the same way in favor of the dangerous dog designation. In doing so, it rejected the finding of a hearing officer who had determined that the dog, named Bacchus, was defending its territory against an intruder.
County Attorney Al Hadeed, at the Dec. 21 meeting, summarized for the commission the settlement proposed by the Sweatt family's attorney and their attorney, Vince Lyon. Hadeed noted to the commission that the hearing was not an evidentiary hearing, so the commissioners were not tasked with weighing evidence in the case. Instead, they simply had to decide whether to accept the settlement — which would end all litigation, including the Sweatt family's appeal of the "dangerous dog" designation before the county court — or to reject the settlement, letting the court case proceed.
If the dog is designated dangerous, the owners could be charged with a third-degree felony if he bites again, Hadeed said. In the proposed settlement, he said, the Sweatt family agreed to abide by the restrictions associated with the dangerous dog designation, except that they did not want to have to build an outdoor enclosure for him: The property is five acres and has an underground electric dog fence. The Sweatts did agree to keep the dog muzzled when he is off the property, Hadeed said, as well as to have Bacchus trained and provide a certificate showing completion of training.
Lyon, the Sweatt family's lawyer, noted that the training isn't required by statute. "They want what you want, which is to make sure that our community is a safe one," he said. "And in order to reach that, they are willing to agree to conditions that will protect the community."
The family of Rickey Westfall, the boy who was bitten, opposes the proposed settlement.
"This agreement is a joke," Rickey's mother, Geri Westfall, wrote in a Dec. 17 email to her attorney, Dennis Bayer. "It doesn't protect anyone from Bacchus chasing them down if they are in the street or riding their bike or taking a walk — because the Sweatts only have an underground fence that Bacchus has a history of running through."
Westfall was writing about an incident in 2014 in which a 64-year-old neighbor of the Sweatts who was bicycling near the house fired a gun toward Bacchus when he ran toward them — but the dog had not, in that case, actually crossed the fence boundary line, something County Commissioner Frank Meeker noted before the vote.
There were other disagreements of fact in the case. The Sweatts had said Rickey let himself into their house uninvited when he was bitten, after he'd showed up once early in the morning to play with the Sweatts' 8-year-old son Rage but been told to go home and not return until the Sweatts called his home to say it was OK to come over.
Both families agreed that Rickey returned later — without a phone call from the Sweatts — and walked into the home, where Bacchus bit him a single time on the face and then retreated. But Rickey said Rage had opened the door for him, while Rage said Rickey had opened the door and entered on his own. Rage's sister, a 12-year-old, said that she didn't see who opened the door, but that the entryway was empty when Rickey entered, and that her brother Rage was on the second floor of the house at the time.
A hearing officer, Charles Cino, found that the dog was defending its home against an intruder and recommended that Bacchus not be designated as dangerous. But commissioners, in the September decision, noted that the boy had been in the home multiple times in the past, and would have been familiar to the dog.
Lyon, at the commission meeting Dec. 21, said that the Sweats understood the Westfall family's pain, but called the dangerous dog designation "punitive" and unnecessary.
"I do understand (Geri Westfall's) pain, my clients understand her pain, and they are doing everything reasonable protect anyone in the future in the community," he said.
Meeker, the only commissioner ready to accept the agreement, suggested that if the Sweatts weren't willing to fence their entire property, perhaps the agreement could require Bacchus to be tethered when he was let out.
"I just want to make sure that Bacchus is protected, that the homeowners are protected and that the neighborhood is protected," Meeker said. He said he believed a motivated dog could "blast through a wireless fence and take the pain hit if they really want to get at something."
Lyon said the family could agree to such a measure.
But there were other sticking points: Geri Westfall had written in the email to Bayer that she believed Bacchus should be muzzled whenever he left the house, that there should be a fenced enclosure in the yard, and that the dog should be added to the Sweatts' homeowners insurance policy — which Lyon said did not cover the family's other dog, a Rottweiler, and would probably would not insure a dog with a bite history.
"This dog is a totally unpredictable dog with an aggressive streak! It is a shame that my son and all my former neighbors can't feel safe in their own community," Westfall wrote in the email to Bayer. "My former neighbors carry Tasers, baseball bats, and golf clubs when they walk and bike and they get no help from anyone with authority."
Bayer, speaking briefly before the board, said the training proposed by the Sweatts was too vague.
"The training is so vague, they could have a next-door neighbor coming over and training the dog," he said. He also said he didn't find the underground fence sufficient, and proposed that if the dog is tethered, it should be with a material that a dog cannot chew through. And, he said, "We think the muzzle should be on the dog when it’s outside the house, period, not just when it's off the property."
Commissioner George Hanns said he was troubled by the severity of the boy's injuries. "I'm of the belief that if an anmal attacks with that viciousness, that they can do it again," he said.
County Commissioner Barbara Revels moved to deny the proposed settlement, and the board voted with her 4-1, with Meeker dissenting.
