The city of St. Francis doesn’t like pit bulls.
So when residents Matthew and Lindsay Krill rescued Alfie and Beatrice from a Kenosha dog shelter last year, the shelter documented the mutts’ parentage with a sworn document that they were not pit bulls.
But none of that mattered after April 19, 2008, when an unleashed and unattended beagle named Roscoe ran barking at the Krills’ two leashed dogs and ended up clenched in Alfie’s jaw. The bloody (but nonfatal) incident attracted the attention of neighbors.
An anonymous witness erroneously reported to 911 that “two pit bulls” were attacking a beagle. Police dispatchers repeated the phrase “pit bull.” After hearing the call, Sgt. Peter Plachinski spotted “two dogs that appeared to be pit bulls.”
St. Francis law allows officials to remove a dog from the city if a municipal judge finds an animal to be “vicious” (meaning likely to “attack unprovoked”) or a pit bull (defined as “American Pit Bull Terrier or Staffordshire Bull Terrier or American Staffordshire Bull Terrier”).
Though the Krills’ dogs didn’t fit the definition, they were seized and sent to the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission (MADACC) for several days before police authorized their release, but only if the Krills agreed to not return the animals to St. Francis.
As the August 2006 Milwaukee Magazine feature “Man Bites Dog” documented, pit bulls are less likely to bite humans than German shepherds, poodles and other dogs. Nonetheless, many municipalities have passed laws against pit bulls in lieu of targeting negligent owners.
Many of these dogs get sent to MADACC, which has no choice but to euthanize those that are not adopted or claimed by owners. Just one out of every 54 pit bulls sent to MADACC since 1998 has come out alive. Of the 22,785 dogs MADACC euthanized between Aug. 1, 1999, and Dec. 31, 2008, nearly 11,000, or 48 percent, were classified as “pit bull.”
Alfie and Beatrice were two of the lucky ones. Once returned, the Krills’ attorney, John J. Carter, filed pleadings in state court, where Circuit Judge Thomas Cooper granted a restraining order forbidding the city from removing the animals until the Municipal Court ruled on the breed and viciousness issues.
Municipal Court Judge Peter Hemmer ruled repeatedly for the city. He forced the dogs to appear in court for hours and refused to accept DNA evidence the Krills obtained from an Ohio lab, which proved the dogs had no trace of pit bull blood, but were a mix of five breeds, with boxer most prevalent.
Instead, the judge allowed the MADACC veterinarian, Dr. Charles Castelein, to testify as an expert witness that the dogs were pit bulls, even though in his deposition Castelein testified he was not an expert and the only experience he had judging animals was at a 4H cow competition. Yet Hemmer refused to allow this deposition into evidence.
The final straw came when it was revealed that Hemmer and prosecutor Nathan Bayer engaged in private correspondence about the case, violating Supreme Court rules. Hemmer was forced to step down as judge, and in August, the case was reassigned to Municipal Judge John Zodrow in Cudahy. Bayer, too, was replaced and put in a diversion program for his ethical violation. Seventeen months after the incident, the case was still pending.
Melanie Sobel, director of MADACC, says the city may be fighting so hard because the case is a precedent and could undo their pit bull ordinance. “Lose the first and they all fail,” she says, adding, “No case stinks like this one.”
