The menace continues

THE PIT BULL menace continues although the law to deal with it was passed some four years ago. Could any situation be more ridiculous? A week ago, at her Longdenville home, 77-year-old Chandrawattie Beera was horribly mauled by her neighbour’s two pitbulls; the latest in a long list of innocent persons slaughtered by these vicious animals. From the statements we obtained from those who went to her rescue and other eyewitnesses, Beera’s death appears to be the result of gross negligence in the control of these four-legged killers, but with the Dangerous Dogs Bill still in limbo, there may be little or nothing the authorities can do to bring the owner to justice.
                        
Nearby residents told Newsday that this tragedy was just waiting to happen since they had been warning the owner for a long time about his ferocious dogs. Recently, the pit bulls killed two other dogs in the area, said Cornelius Chester. “When we complain to the owner, he would only say it is for his protection against bandits. Now we want to know if the old lady is a bandit.” The fact is that after a mounting death toll from the ruthless jaws of pit pulls, together with growing alarm from members of the public, former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj produced legislation intended virtually to ban the breeding and keeping of these fearsome animals in Trinidad and Tobago. The Dangerous Dogs Bill was passed in Parliament four years ago but, we understand, it was never implemented since its accompanying regulations were not approved by the Minister of Works. The UNC was voted out of office shortly after, but under the last three years of the PNM the regulations remained unapproved.

If the fatal mauling of Chandrawattie Beera by these savage dogs would now jolt the Works Minister into approving the regulations to the Act, then the old woman’s agonising death would not be in vain. According to reports, Beera was attacked around 3 pm while tending her kitchen garden at the back of her Dam Road home. By the time she was rescued by neighbours who heard her desperate screams, Beera had been severely savaged by the two dogs. Her nose, right hand, right ear and scalp had been ripped out. She died from these injuries about three hours later at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital. “We beat the dogs with everything we had, wood, iron, fork, cutlass,” recalled rescuer Keron Lett. “Eventually I chopped one of them and my friend stabbed it with a fork, and that was how that dog stopped.”

But we need not dwell anymore on the sheer ferocity of these animals which have taken several lives in the most brutal fashion since they were introduced here many years ago. We know that this is the nature of the breed. They have been outlawed in several other countries. What we do not understand is the hesitation or reluctance of the Works Minister to implement the Act which prohibits the breeding of pit bulls, makes it exceedingly expensive to keep them by requiring $250,000 insurance for each animal and imposes severe penalties on owners found guilty of negligence. Under the Act, in fact, owners of pit bulls which kill innocent persons can be charged with manslaughter if they did not properly secure the animals on their premises. We are saddened by Chandrawattie Beera’s painful death. We can only hope that the old woman would not have died in vain.