Last week the husband of a woman fatally mauled by dogs in 2013 sued the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control (DACC), alleging officials at the county agency “knew of problems with the animals and failed to do enough to mitigate the danger.”

Benjamin Devitt filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging wrongful death, fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, negligent misrepresentation and public nuisance.

The article announcing the lawsuit prompted many infamous anti-Pit Bull web aliases to flood the comment section in an attempt to narratively blame millions of uninvolved dogs for Mrs. Devitt’s tragic death. I chose to comment and pointed out that even Devitt’s grieving husband, the one who is actually bringing this lawsuit, doesn’t blame “Pit Bulls” as a whole. Hell, he doesn’t even blame the specific individual dogs who killed his wife! He blames the irresponsible person who allowed this situation to manifest itself, who repeatedly allowed these dogs to roam freely. That person’s name is Alex Jackson. Further, he is now suing the animal control department for repeatedly ignoring these situations when they went reported, among other things that he is now learning about said animal control department.

For example:
-Alex Jackson’s dogs were involved in “at least 7 other altercations in the 18 months leading up to the attack on Devitt.”
-9 witnesses, including several horse riders and a postal worker, testified about these 7 previous encounters.
-One of the horse riders “offered to provide free fencing and help Jackson put it up to keep the dogs on his property,” which Jackson refused.
-Jackson purposefully let his dogs roam in order to “ward off people from his property that was also a marijuana grow house.”
-DACC employees “did not adequately follow up on complaints by area residents about the dogs by citing Jackson, requiring enclosure of his animals and warning the public of the danger.
-The complaint alleges that “DACC employees entered updates in internal records to make it appear that they did not know” about Jackson’s dogs before Devitt was killed, and that they “followed up on complaints after they were made by the public.”
-Some DACC employees who worked out of the Lancaster office “were often under the influence of alcohol and ingesting illegal substances while on the job.”
-DACC Director Marcia Mayeda “knew that some employees were under the influence at work and while driving county vehicles, but failed to fire them.”
-The plaintiff claims that Mayeda “was not truthful” when she told the L.A. County Board of Supervisors in May of 2013 that no dogs were ever found on Jackson’s property when her workers responded to complaints.
-Records show that the DACC began receiving complaints about Jackson’s dogs as far back as 2005.

^Is this not enough red flagage? I mean, holy crap. We have dogs that are consistently left to run loose. We have dogs that are used to protect a drug operation, meaning they likely weren’t very socialized, and probably purposefully not. We have numerous reported prior attacks on other animals. We have numerous reported prior instances about the dogs always being left to run loose. We have a very obvious reckless dog owner. We have an animal control department that failed to genuinely follow up on any of the numerous reported incidents of the past. We have an animal control department that is committing fraud by post-altering internal records to reflect untruths. We have an animal control department that is failing to reprimand its employees when they are blatantly violating codes of conduct while on the job. We have an animal control department that is looking the other way to certain employees driving drunk in their county vehicles. And on, and on, and on.

So as I point these things out in my comment, DogsBite.org fanboy Dennis Baker (contributor to many anti-Pit Bull Facebook pages and California resident) gets on and calls me the “biggest troll here.” But wow, I was just stating what the Los Angeles Daily News put into their own article, if Baker even bothered to read it. I mean, how dare I point to a few things that are further fleshed out in the above 10 bullet points? According to Baker and other known exploitation artists, none of that matters and it’s simply the fault of every Pit Bull-type dog and its owner, every single one of each in existence. Yeah, that’s rational. Yeah, that’s not being a hyper-troll.

What is an internet troll? As one of my friends recently said, “trolling is the act of making obnoxious and transparently provocative comments on the internet for the express purpose of inciting conflict.”

So yes, me, simply stating obvious facts about the case (all reported in this very article), as well as about Pamela Devitt’s husband’s own video recorded comments regarding him NOT BLAMING PIT BULLS = Troll. Riiiiight. Dennis Baker and select others, ignoring all reckless elements of this case (and the actual victim’s take on the matter) in an effort to solely scapegoat millions of Pit Bulls and Pit Bull owners for the actions of a few dogs and 1 person = Not a troll. Riiiiight. Way to be objective, guys!

Baker goes on to call me a “little man.” Okay, cute. But this little man has been trying to engage anyone with an anti-dog agenda on a platform that is out in the open and recorded, for almost a year now. Not a single DogsBite.org fanboy or fangirl has been willing to discuss any element of these numerous issues with me (or anyone else that doesn’t wholly agree with them). Instead, they conversate in an echo chamber and publicly act as though they are so righteously above the fray to anyone with a differing view. These individuals refuse to (or can’t) even communicate with the common man or woman about anything related to dogs or their blame-heavy positions. But again, I am here to facilitate just this very thing. So if Dennis Baker ever wants to have a human conversation with the “little man” on these many issues, I am ready to do that and would be happy to take part in it.

Dennis (or anyone else who wants to criminalize, regulate, ban or kill millions of dogs simply for the way that they look), you can call me at 657-206-7929 or email me at swayloveorg@gmail.com and I’d be happy to set such a communication up. If you are too scared to have a human to human conversation then you can feel free to leave a message on my voicemail and I’d happily attempt to engage your point that way. What isn’t going to continue to happen is having you guys filling comment sections with tired hatred for dogs that you’ve net met, and not have someone reach out to you and then document your failures to engage in an open platform. That is happening now. That will continue to happen.

Part 2: Warning: Mayeda will attempt to spin the Devitt lawsuit