Runners Beware!; Our Comment Policy

On the perimeter roads at 5:30-6 A.M. today we passed 36 pedestrians, 27 of them black. Three of the white pedestrians were walking dogs. One, a young woman, had her two dogs unleashed, running towards us in the runner's lane on the east drive just north of Center Drive. We said, in a polite tone, "excuse me, but dogs aren't allowed off-leash here. They get in the runners' way." The shouted reply, judging by the tone of voice, was neither polite nor compliant, unfortunately just what all of us have come to expect from owners who are told that their dogs should be leashed. As early newspaper reports suggested and as we've noted, unleashed dogs during dog hours seem to be a problem for runners and bicyclists in Central Park, where it seems they're allowed on the roadways. The problem's coming to Prospect.

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Comments on this blog are moderated, which means they don't get published unless the moderator allows them. While we reserve the right to have the last word, our policy is to encourage full and frank--that's diplomatic speak for "I disagree with everything you say"--discussion of the issues raised here. But that discussion, pro or con, must be on-topic, intelligent and polite. Within those guidelines, we have accepted and will continue to accept comments disagreeing with what we say, including comments from those who approve of the off-leash policy. Similarly, we have rejected, and will continue to reject, comments consisting of insults and personal attacks, no matter which side they come from.

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From http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_newsroom/daily_plants/daily_plant_main.php?id=10169 (we’re giving you the URL in case the DOPR deletes it and you need to find an archived copy of the website):

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO IN THE PLANT
(Friday, July 8, 1988)

PARKS CRACKS DOWN ON UNLEASHED DOGS

In an effort to cut down on the danger from dogs running loose through Central Park, Parks is stepping up enforcement of the law against unleashed dogs. Since May 13, when the new policy went into effect, the Parks Enforcement Patrol (PEP) has reassigned officers to pursue and ticket the owners of unleashed dogs in the park. As a result, between May 13 and July 2, PEPs issued 270 unleashed dog summonses as well as 12 summonses for unlicensed dogs and 5 for animal nuisances. An unleashed dog summons carries a $50 fine.

“Danger from dogs running loose”. Why are they less dangerous now? And “successful 20-year policy”?

Staten Island Pit Bull Update

According to an article in today’s Staten Island Advance,

the dog owner has been charged in the mauling with second-degree assault, a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison if convicted at trial.

Officials are charging him under the subsection in the law that defines second-degree assault as when someone "recklessly causes serious physical injury to another person by means of a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument."

The DA is grandstanding. It is unlikely these charges will stick. First, they’re mostly likely to be plea-bargained way down. Second, the prosecutors are on shaky legal ground. In doing some quick legal research, the only case we found that addresses this point holds that a dog (in this case a German shepherd) is not a “deadly weapon”, at least for purposes of the (similar) robbery statute. People v. Torrez, 86 Misc.2d 369, 382 N.Y.S.2d 233 (Sup. Ct., Bronx Cty. 1976).

We also found only three reported New York cases in which a defendant was accused of assault with a dog--and one would expect that if someone were convicted, he or she would appeal, and the appellate decision would be reported. In People v. Gottlieb, 130 A.D.2d 202, 517 N.Y.S.2d 978 (1^st Dept. 1987), an unleashed sheepdog attacked a woman in a laundry room. The conviction was reversed. In People v. Thompson, 161 A.D.2d 236, 555 N.Y.S.2d 266 (1^st Dept. 1990), “the assault charge brought against defendant was predicated on the theory that he had deliberately loosened the leash to enable the dog [a pit bull terrier] to reach” the victim. That conviction was reversed too. The only case we found where charges of assault with a weapon (another pit bull) finally stuck was People v. Hubert, 237 A.D.2d 756, 655 N.Y.S.2d 140 (3d Dept. 1997, but there the defendant held onto the leash as the dog menaced a policeman. So while this will not be the first time a dog owner has been charged with a crime when his unleashed, dog bites someone, we could find no reported New York case where such a dog owner was convicted of the crime and the conviction stuck.

As we said, unless the victim dies, we don’t think the law is going to make this dog owner serve the time he deserves. The law needs to be changed to deter dog owners from letting their dogs off-leash illegally.

And see, they’re not all pit bulls.

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A correspondent sent the following email to Councilman Peter Vallone:

I just read that in the wake of yesterday's attack by two pit bulls on Staten Island, you have proposed legislation that would track New York City's pit bulls.

Your focus on the pit bull aspect of the attack is mistaken. I don't know whether pit bulls are good or bad. I do know that this attack could have occurred--and similar attacks have occurred--with dogs other than pit bulls. I also know that this attack could NOT have occurred had the dogs been leashed. According to news reports, these dogs were perpetually permitted to run unleashed. The owner was picked up and "charged" with having unleashed and unlicensed dogs. But neither of these is a crime--they are both violations, punishable by small fines. In short, the owner is likely to escape punishment for these attacks.

If an illegally unleashed dog attacks another dog, because of a quirk in state law, the situation is even worse. In essence, if this happens outside New York City, (1) you can call the police and (2) if you have to injure or kill the other dog to defend your dog, you can't be held civilly liable. By contrast, in New York City, (1) the police can't intervene and (2) if you attack the attacking dog, you're on your own. It doesn't matter if the dog that attacks your dog is unleashed; you have essentially no recourse. You can find a full discussion of this problem at http://credo-ny.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-to-do-if-loose-dog-attacks-your.html,

Something needs to be done to deter people from letting their dogs run unleashed, leaving the dogs free to attack people--or other dogs.

You should sponsor legislation--or use your influence to get the state legislature to enact legislation---that

(1) if an illegally unleashed dog attacks a human being, that attack is a crime, punishable in the same degree as if the owner had committed the attack, and

(2) makes New York City subject to the same rules as other areas outside of New York City for dog-on-dog attacks where the attack is by an illegally unleashed dog on a leashed dog.

But we suspect this suggestion will go nowhere. Councilman Vallone is running for mayor and is not likely inclined to make waves.

Yesterday's Staten Island Pit Bull Attack

“An off-leash dog is a tired dog, and a tired dog is a good dog.” We wonder how that jibes with the events described in Staten Island Man Is Mauled by Neighbor's Pit Bulls in today’s New York Times. The dogs stripped most of the skin of one arm and one leg and left bite marks across the parts of the body of the victim, a 90-year-old man, that they did not shred. Neighbors said that the dogs rarely were on a leash.

According to this update, the victim has had a leg amputated. The Staten Island Advance reports that he might lose an arm too. Also, the owner has now been “charged” with having unlicensed dogs and not having his dogs on a leash. But these aren’t crimes; they’re only violations, punishable by a small fine. To put the owner away for as long as he deserves, prosecutors are going to have to come up with something better, such as criminally negligent homicide when the victim dies of his wounds, as would seem inevitable. But what if the victim lives? Sure he could sue, but not if this were the first time the dogs had bitten anyone, and besides: how much will anyone be able to collect from this owner? Perhaps it is time for the state legislature to enact a law that an assault by an animal that is illegally off-leash is deemed to be an assault by the owner, subject to the same criminal penalties as if the owner had committed it. Unduly harsh? We think not.

As one would expect, commentary on the web is focusing on precisely the wrong issue, the breed of dog in the attack and whether that breed should be banned. This sort of attack could happen with other breeds of dogs as well. The problem was not that they were pit bulls. The problem was that they were chronically off-leash and that, as usual, the cops knew about it and did nothing.

A related matter: as we pointed out here , short of hiring a lawyer, you have pretty much no recourse if your dog is attacked by an unleashed pit bull--or by any other dog--in New York City. You can't even file a police report.

The Truth from FIDO

From FIDO’s website:

Too many people allowing their dogs off-leash ON the ball fields. Morning work crews would prefer not to encounter off-leash dogs. This is perceived by Park officials to be caused by dog owners making their way around the ball fields with off-leash dogs who STILL wander down and bother ball field workers.

So as of today all dogs MUST remain on-leash AND on a path (!) when entering the Long Meadow from Prospect Park SouthWest; Prospect Park West south of Ninth Street and Bartold Pritchard Square. You must remain on-leash until you cross the Ninth Street path into the Long Meadow. For you sidewalk lawyers out there: if you're already coming down the Ninth Street path past the inner drive, you're OK if you're off-leash in the grass to the left of the path.

. . . .

Because less than a half dozen people weren't willing to control their dogs for a few hundred feet, everyone loses.

. . . .

What made FIDO in Prospect Park viable ten years ago was that a committed bunch of dog owners gathered together with Park administration to work out the basic off-leash rules that were essentially the rules we know today. . . . .

If you aee serious about responsible off-leash, we ask that you become a member of FIDO. While we have about four hundred members . . . .

Until everyone gets serious about standing up as a LARGE group committed to responsible off-leash rules, we're going to lose more and more off-leash space.

You saw it last week in the Nethermead - warning tickets handed out EVERY day of the week. . . . .

Afternoon off-leash in the Nethermead is not something Prospect Park's dog community demands as an "extra" over everyone else in the city but a return to a responsible weekday policy carefully worked out with the Prospect Park Alliance over ten years ago.

. . .

It was NEVER, EVER off-leash policy to allow dogs in the Nethermead on Weekends after 5 p.m. You will be ticketed!

You may receive warnings after 5 p.m. on weekdays and those who protest or make a stink will be ticketed as well. City Law states that all off-leash is to be from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. Park policy is that when those in authority ask you to leash up, even during off-leash hours, you MUST comply. . . .

So:

1. Surprise! Owners are letting their dogs wander onto ballfields. Only a “half dozen”? We don’t think so. And what about owners letting their dogs bother horses on bridle paths, as reported recently in The Times?

2. And just because owners are letting their dogs do this, they may not be unleashed until they get onto the Long Meadow? You mean if it weren’t for dogs on the ballfields, it would be OK to unleash dogs BEFORE they got onto the Long Meadow? The Long Meadow is a designated area; areas outside it are not. We don’t get it.

3. So FIDO, this great organization representing Brooklyn 50,000 (or is it 500,000?) dog owners, has all of 400 members. Talk about influence disproportionate to numbers.

4. A chunk of the current off-leash travesty is a “responsible weekday policy carefully worked out with the Prospect Park Alliance over ten years ago.” What’s this about a “successful 20-year policy”?

5. It says that that “warning tickets” are being handed out on the Nethermead on weekdays and warns “you will be ticketed”. It doesn’t say anything about real summonses actually having been handed out (or say precisely who is handing either out).

Are We Racist? /NYCDOG in League with PEP

On June 6 we reported that Commissioner Benepe was supposed to speak the following day at some off-leash gathering at Prospect Park. It turns out that the gathering was a celebration of the first anniversary of the off-leash rules (if we were Palestinian, we’d call it the nakba). We don’t know if the Commissioner showed up, but one of his deputies, a gentleman named Kevin E. Jeffrey did. The pictures are here. (Go ahead: read the rest of the website and the links from it. We’ve addressed some of their nonsensical contentions and we’ll be addressing what they say in future posts.) First, observe the pictures of the gathering and compare them with the other pictures on the website. It is striking that (1) Assistant Commissioner Jeffrey and the head of PEP, Mike Dockett, are black; (2) of the several black people in the picture of the gathering, only one appears to even possibly be a dog owner, and (3) in all of the other many pictures on the website, the only black face is that of Mike Dockett. Were Benepe, by sending Jeffrey, and the photographer, by seemingly finding what were perhaps the only black faces on the Long Meadow, trying to counter what we’ve been saying?

Incidentally, we seem to have picked up some readers who while not pro-leash at least have an open mind. Does our pointing out things like this make us racist? It depends on what you mean. Is someone who observes the relative number of blacks and whites stopped by police on the highway; notes that the percentage of blacks stopped is much higher than that of whites; and suggests that the disparity is deliberate, a racist? That’s just what we’re doing. We are documenting that the overwhelming majority of dog owners who let their dogs run unleashed are white; that a majority of park users, at least in Prospect Park, are non-white people; and suggesting that this disparity may be part of a plan to bring more white people and fewer black people into the parks. If this makes us racist, so be it.

Also, look at the third picture down, showing a bunch of dog owners flanked by two smiling, uniformed PEP officers and a sign, “NYCDOG”. By now, there should be no question that statements on NYCDOG's website that "the solution [to owners' letting their dogs off-leash illegally] is to stiffen enforcement of the rules", that "Off-leash dog owner groups . . .try to self-police Off-leash Hours" and that the "various groups that comprise the Off-leash movement are strongly in favor of stiffer fines . . . and strong enforcement of the laws" is pious blather: to take just one small sample, we've observed a majority of dog owners who use the Peninsula Meadow dog run letting their dogs run loose before they get to the Peninsula, after they leave it, or both. And we pointed out that one owner who was letting his dog wander--and harrass passers-by--along Wellhouse Road looked like the president of FIDO. And no PEP agents are ever there to stop them. If there’s any better proof than this photograph that PEP is in league with the people they’re supposed to be regulating and has no intention of enforcing what’s left of the leash law in the City’s parks, we don’t what it could be.

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Prospect Park, 4 P.M.: 4 unleashed dogs in and around dog beach. A cop drove by and did not stop. Also, 4: 15 P.M., 2 unleashed dogs on Nethermead. All dog owners were white.

Unleashed Etiquette

We visited Muttontown Preserve on Long Island today, and asked a staff member who was showing us around whether they had a problem with unleashed dogs. He turned serious. Well, he said, the preserve doesn't allow dogs at all, leashed or unleashed, because they damage the vegetation and the wildlife, and also because there are horses in the preserve and the dogs might spook them. But on occasion he does see unleashed dogs, and when he does he just asks the owner politely--this staff member is pretty inoffensive--to leash the dog (even though the dog isn't allowed in the first place). Sometimes the owner says "oh, I forgot", and leashes the dog. Most of the time--his words--though, the owner becomes abusive and curses him. Sound familiar? So this is the M.O. of those who run their dogs in the parks.

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Yesterday in Prospect Park around 4 P.M., a black Baptist organization was having picnic on the Nethermead. There were no unleashed dogs there. But we ran across four others, one on the fringes of the Nethermead and the rest near the lake and pools.

Prospect Park, The Dog Playground; New Nethermead Petition

7:50 A.M.: Wellhouse Road where it turns to go over Terrace Bridge, 3 loose dogs of various sizes heading in various directions. The owner of one had let the dog's leash go on the path from the Nethermead, evidently so the dog could run the rest of the way to the peninsula. And then as we headed over Terrace Bridge we heard loud barking. We turned around and saw a woman playing fetch with her dog on the slope below the Maryland Monument. (Yes, unleashed dogs bark, notwithstanding what the off-leash crowd will tell you.) Presumably, either the Peninsula was too crowded (there were 6 dogs there) or the dog hadn't been socialized enough to go there.

Why are there no signs anywhere in Prospect Park except at its entrances and the dog beach specifying when loose dog hours are? Why are there no signs at entrances to the woodlands, or other frequented by off-leash scofflaws, saying "dogs must be leashed at all times in this area"?

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It seems that Tupper Thomas’s puppet organization, FIDO. is petitioning to restore 5 P.M. off-leash hours on the Nethermead weekdays. Why bother? They’re there already!