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Pit Bull Mauls Eight-Year-Old San Bernardino Girl, Caught On Surveillance Video

By Nancy Bailey
Published on: 16:25 PST, May 18, 2016

A pit bull attacked an 8-year-old girl while she was walking to school in San Bernardino on May 11. The attack was caught on surveillance video, and shows a neighbor coming to the rescue of the girl, Gabriella Jones.

The pit bull belonged to a neighbor, who apologized to Gabriella and her family, and said he has since euthanized the dog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bh-Ex1xbKY

The video shows the dog coming from behind and nipping at the girl, and then jumping up and grabbing her by the hand and pulling her off balance, dragging her across the sidewalk effortlessly like a sack of flour.

The dog bit her ear and face until a neighbor, Jesse Jimenez, heard her screams and came outside to chase the dog off.

Gabriella talked about the attack in an interview with NBC Los Angeles.

“I thought that my life was going to end right there. It bit me on my leg and then went up to my ear. That’s when that guy came and started hitting him and kicking the dog.”

Gabriella, who is in second grade, was taken to the hospital where she was treated for lacerations on her face, ear, hand, and leg, and told she would need corrective surgery.

Gabby’s mother, Rebecca Hernandez Patino, cried and told KTLA 5 News that no one but Gabby’s rescuer, Jesse Jimenez, had the nerve to come to her aid. The rest of the witnesses just stood around making videos while the pit bull mauled the little girl.

“Everyone was just standing around with their cameras, and he was the only one who had the guts and the courage to go and help her.

“Nobody else did. Everyone else was just watching.”

The dog had escaped from a nearby house, she said.

“It came charging at her.”

The attack on Gabriella was followed by another attack in Staten Island last Tuesday, wherein a 77-year-old man was bitten and yanked to the ground when trying to save his chihuahua from an escaped pit bull.

New York Daily News reported that Eugene Charles was walking Charlie, his 13-pound Chihuahua, just before 8:30 a.m. when the pit bull “came flying out” from behind a nearby house.

“I grabbed Charlie to pick him up and he missed him. He didn’t bark or nothing, no conversation. The second or third time he was able to grab Charlie and he grabbed him from the midsection and the lower part of the hips, and that was it.

“I was trying to hold Charlie and get him off him and then it wound up he gave me a couple of bites.”

Authorities came and took control of the pit bull, the report said. It had killed Charlie within a couple of minutes.

“All this, you’d think I was in the slaughterhouse. Just all blood and everything from Charlie and whatever was coming out of my hands.”

The influx of recent pit bull attacks on other dogs included the death of two small dogs in El Paso on Wednesday, when a loose pit bull found its way into their fenced yard.

Owner Joe Grindstaff told KVIA News that he had captured the attacks on his surveillance camera.

“The pit bull destroyed pretty much one of my dogs immediately. Just tore him apart.”

The attack left a gruesome scene, with pieces of the first dog flung around the yard, and the second dog mortally wounded, Grindstaff said.

His wife ran outside to try to protect the little dogs, but when the pit bull turned on her, she ran back into the house and called 911.

Since no humans were harmed, the pit bull was released back to the owner, and the owner was fined $2,000, the report stated. Grindstaff is considering a civil suit, but is still waiting for a full incident report.

[Image via Dezi/Shutterstock]

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