Takoma Park Considers Ban After Pit Bull Attack on Teen

The dog let go when their bodies hit the street. Danny jumped up and ran around a parked car. But Dollar chased and lunged for his left forearm. This time, he clamped.

"I was punching him in the face with my other hand, but he wouldn't let go," Danny said. "It was terrifying."

Jim Flaherty, a neighbor out walking his dog, heard the boy's screams and rushed to help, but he couldn't force the dog away. Finally, Dollar loosened his bite enough for Danny to vault a low picket fence.

He ran to a stranger's house, his hands bloody, and rang the bell. He had puncture wounds on both sides of his arm, a two-inch chunk of muscle missing from his forearm and a partially severed tendon.

"I'm really sorry for what happened," the dog's owner, Richard Fuentes, said in a brief phone interview. "I've apologized, but I can't really say anything else about it right now."

Fuentes visited Danny soon after the attack and offered to pay his medical costs, said Danny's father, Meriwether Jones. But Jones added that Fuentes has since told him that his home insurance policy, like most in Maryland, doesn't cover attacks by pit bulls.

The two families are trying to work out an arrangement, Jones said.

The medical bills already total more than $12,000, he said, and will probably be substantially more. Danny was hospitalized for three nights with an infection. He sees a physical therapist once a week and does daily exercises to restore his range of motion.

The seriousness of Danny's injuries and the unprovoked nature of the attack have fueled calls for a ban, even though Takoma Park police have no previous pit bull attack on record.

"This is the first one I've heard of, but it was very, very egregious," Clay said.

If Takoma Park enacts a ban, the city would have to enforce it on its own, according to Steve Bartlett of the Montgomery County Animal Control Division. Bartlett's agency handles vicious-dog calls in Takoma Park, and he was the field officer who confiscated Dollar after the attack.

With Fuentes's permission, Dollar was put down after a 10-day quarantine period to test for rabies. But policing a ban, and determining whether a stocky mutt with strong jaws constitutes a true pit bull, would be different.