• 25
  • August
    2010

Last December, Terrence Roker and his four-year-old daughter Taite were strolling through their Riverdale neighborhood looking at Christmas lights, when both were attacked by a Pit Bull that had escaped from a neighbor's yard. The three-year-old dog, going by the name "Snoop," tore into Roker's leg and bit at his daughter's feet.

The dog attack, by all accounts, was unprecedented and unprovoked. The dog was confiscated and taken to the Animal Care & Control shelter in Brooklyn where it would stay until it was put down.

That was the plan.

Instead, eight months later, Snoop is out and headed back home.

A spokeswoman for the New York Department of Health claimed that she really had no idea why the dog was released. To be sure, the dog's owner and her lawyer had to work hard to get the dog off of death row.

Even so, this is a dog that attacked a child with an adult, requiring both to seek medical attention.

The only defense of the dog's behavior, noted in The New York Daily News, was that the dog had "never bitten anyone before."

The owner was forced to put up a seven-foot fence around her house before authorities would sign off on Snoop's pardon.

The Rokers, who are suing the dog's owner, have since moved. However, Terrence remains concerned for the safety of others in the neighborhood. Hopefully, those fears remain unjustified.

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