“DETROIT, MI — The Wayne County Medical Examiner on Thursday ruled the death of a 4-year-old boy, killed after being mauled by pit bulls, an “accident” caused by “multiple puncture wounds (Burns, 2015)”.

I can honestly say I am stunned….and angry. We, as a community should be standing up yelling “Hell, the f@ck NO.” We as a community should be demanding that the death of that child should be ruled a homicide and the owner of those dogs should be thrown in jail and charged with AT LEAST 2nd degree murder or involuntary manslaughter w/endangering children, of course I would prefer 1st degree charges.

Xavier Strickland was 4 years old. Xavier was heading to school, probably excited for what was going to go on in his classroom. Xavier Strickland never made it past 15500 Baylis in Detroit.

Reports of those dogs having been running at large, aggressive and previous issues with the neighborhood children and the medical examiner declares the child’s death an accident? Nope. Sorry, that’s wrong. Those dogs hurting or killing someone wasn’t a if but a when. The brutality of the mauling was deadly which is not surprising the victim was a 4 year old child, if the victim had been an adult, he might have stood a chance.

“He appeared irritated with police after learning they’d shot and killed one of his dogs (Burns, 2015)

The owner of the dogs seems irritated? He probably was, considering he probably was a back yard breeder (which explains the pregnant female dog.) and he just lost his profit. None of his dogs were vaccinated, registered or obviously fixed and he just had them contained in a poorly fenced yard. Again, how is anything about this child’s death accidental?

“The dogs were not registered and the owner could produce no proof of rabies vaccination, said Dan Austin, a spokesman for Mayor Mike Duggan’s office. He said the owner will be cited for those violations (Burns,2015)”

What they need to do is take those citations and tear those up and draw up murder charges and as a community we need to demand that. We need to force our justice system to take a tougher stance on negligent dog owners like the owners of these dogs.

For the medical examiner to call this child’s death an accident is insulting. The very definition of accident is:

1.  An unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.
2.  An event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause.

The owner of these dogs were deliberately negligent. This child’s death wasn’t accident. The harsh reality is, if it wasn’t Xavier, it would have been someone else… How is that not murder?  This is why we as a community of pit bull “type” dogs need to speak up and our voices need to be louder than the BSL Advocates.  We have to demand that law enforcement step back and really look at the cases that involve fatal dog attacks.  Over and over again, with cases like Daxton Borchardt, Levi Watson, Beau Rutledge where there were apparent negligence that resulted in a child being killed are swept under the rug and labeled just a terrible “accident”. Sadly, many law enforcement officers have to take the word of those at the scene, since many times there are no witnesses, much like the case of Daxton Borchardt, Levi Watson and Beau Rutledge and we need to make it stop and if we don’t, our innocent dogs will always have a target on their back.

We, as pit bull/bully breed type dog owners will always be facing discrimination and forced to pay for the crimes of Susan Iwicki, Angela Rutledge and the irresponsible owner of these latest dogs if our voices are not heard. We have to say ENOUGH is ENOUGH and start forcing our Law Enforcement and the Judicial System to do their job and the first step would be changing this child’s autopsy report to murder.

1. Intent- Leaving the known aggressive dogs intentionally unsecured
2. Deliberation and Premeditation – Deliberately keeping aggressive dogs and knowingly breeding known aggressive dogs.
3. “Malice Aforethought”- More irritated that the police shot his dogs than the fact that his dogs just killed a child.