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Seattle, Washington (June 3, 2009) -- DogsBite.org, a national dog bite victims’ group dedicated to reducing serious dog attacks, releases its 2008 report on pit bulls shot for public safety reasons. The 20-page report documents 373 incidences in which U.S. law enforcement officers and citizens were forced to shoot a dangerous pit bull to prevent an attack or to stop an ongoing attack.
The report tracked 12 data aspects per incident. Of the 373 incidences, 626 bullets were fired and 319 pit bulls were killed. 148 people suffered bite injury in these incidences as well. In at least three instances, the bite injury resulted in amputation. In six instances, the bite injury resulted in death. The findings also show that firearm intervention might have prevented at least eight deaths by a pit bull mauling in this period.
According to the report, 43 U.S. states had at least one shooting. States with the highest number of shootings include: California (37), Texas (32), Florida (24), Illinois (23) Ohio (23), Pennsylvania (20), Washington (15) and Indiana (13). Of the U.S. cities documented, Omaha had the most shootings (9), all of which occurred within a 6-month period, followed by Chicago (7) and a group of U.S. cities each reporting four.
Information for the 12-month report was gathered through online media sources -- Google News Alerts and web searches -- at the time of the shooting. Extensive Internet searches were not performed to find the 373 incidences.
The six incidences that resulted in death include: Isis Krieger, 6 (Anchorage, AK), Kelli Chapman, 24 (Longville, LA), Luna McDaniel, 83 (Ville Platte, LA) Cenedi Carey, 4 months (Las Vegas, NV) Tanner Monk, 7, (Breckenridge, TX) and Pablo Lopez Hernandez, 5, (Weslaco, TX).
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