Boy recovers from dog attack in Warren, receives 275 stitches

By Ed Runyan

A fellow fifth-grader threw shoes at the dogs to help fight them off.

WARREN — The 10-year-old boy badly injured when three dogs attacked him early Tuesday in his neighbor’s front yard on Merriweather Street Northwest received hundreds of stitches in his head and leg, but is recovering at home.

De’Vonte Jackson was allowed to go home Tuesday night and was resting in his living room Wednesday afternoon.

He said one of the dogs attacked and bit his head, while the other two bit his leg. He has about 200 stitches in his head; about 75 in his leg.

He had little else to say about the vicious attack, only: “Why’d it have to be me?”

He also said he was not looking forward to possibly getting rabies shots. His mother, Tamara Jackson, said De’Vonte had received a tetanus shot but no rabies shots — yet.

Jackson said De’Vonte is likely to spend a couple weeks in a wheelchair because of the leg injury but might return to school as early as next week. He’s a fifth-grader at McGuffey Elementary.

No tests have been done so far to determine whether any ligament or other internal injuries are present, Tamara Jackson said, saying that will be determined in follow-up doctor visits.

De’Vonte was at a neighbor’s house, waiting for a ride to school, when the attack occurred, Jackson said.

When the three dogs began to attack, De’Vonte and Janaya Morgan, a fifth-grade friend, tried to fight them off.

De’Vonte punched and hit the dogs with his hands, while Janaya threw shoes and anything else she could find at the animals, Jackson said.

“I’m really proud of him,” she said of her son. “He was strong. He kept punching them and trying to get them off. If not, it could have been much worse.”

Janaya’s mother drove De’Vonte to his house and picked up Jackson so they could get De’Vonte to the hospital. On the way, a police officer and ambulance met them, and the ambulance took him the rest of the way.

“No 10-year-old should go through that,” Jackson said. “As a parent, that’s the last thing you want to see is your baby dripping in blood.”

It was the second time that morning that dogs attacked on that section of Merriweather. A 21-year-old newspaper carrier received minor injuries to his legs and went to the hospital when dogs attacked him at about 4:45 a.m.

Officers went to Merriweather within 10 minutes of the second attack at 8:22 a.m. and found the three dogs still there and killed them with shotguns.

John Onatz, Warren animal control officer, said it is preferable to catch such dogs rather than kill them, but there was a chance the dogs could have gotten away.

Patrol officers handle the shooting of dogs, Onatz said, because officers have shotguns and he does not. A shotgun is preferable to a pistol because the shotgun usually kills the animal with one shot, Onatz said.

At least one of the three dogs, a mostly black bull mastiff weighing about 110 pounds, had an expensive spiked collar on it, so it probably belonged to someone, Onatz said, but so far no one has come forward to claim ownership of any of the three.

The other dogs were a brindle-colored pit bull mix weighing about 70 pounds and a German shepherd mix weighing about 50 pounds, Onatz said.

Jackson said she hopes anyone who knows who the dogs belonged to will come forward to tell police “because they really need to be held accountable.”

An account for De’Vonte has been established at Huntington Bank to help with medical expenses, Jackson said.

runyan@vindy.com