Woman killed in pit-bull attacks

One woman was killed and another injured in what Houston police are calling a “vicious dog attack” early Saturday in Northside.

Three pitbulls were believed to be responsible for the attacks around 5 a.m. in the 5500 block of Arlington Street, near the intersection of Tidwell and the North Freeway, Assistant Chief Pete Lopez said. It’s unclear if both women were attacked at the same time or in separate incidents.

The animals’ owner, who was one of two people to report the attack to police, could face charges, Lopez said. Police were referring the case to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, and said it will take time to investigate.

City ordinances require dog owners to keep their dogs contained on leashes, Lopez said. The assistant chief raised negligent manslaughter as a possible charge.

The dogs were contained in the

yard of an Arlington Street house in the hours after the attack, and animal control was coming to retrieve them.

The medical examiner’s office arrived at the scene just after 9 a.m. to retrieve the victim’s body from a ditch on the eastern side of the road. The second woman was taken to the hospital and will survive her wounds, which include several dog bites, Lopez said.

Across the street, a dog lay dead in another ditch that neighbors said was unrelated to the attacks — it had been there for days.

Neighbors said they were awoken by intense barking at around 3 a.m. The calls to police were reported at 5:48 and 5:55 a.m., according to Lopez.

The neighbors, who did not want to be identified, said the dogs had a history of aggression and violence. One said the animals had gotten into a neighbor’s house a couple years ago, and they had also attacked their owner.

Lopez said he had officers check for service calls in the last year and didn’t find any in that period.

The woman who survived made her way to the intersection of Cortland and Hamilton streets about a block away, where her husband called police, according to Lopez.

Police have yet to identify the woman who was killed. It’s unknown at this time whether the two victims knew each other or were together at the time of the attacks.

About 25 people were killed in dog attacks in the U.S. in 2018, according to DogsBite.org, a public education website. Pit bulls accounted for roughly threefourths of the attacks, and most of the victims were family members.

Criminal charges rarely follow the attacks, according to the website, which noted only two “meaningful criminal charges” followed attacks in 2018.

In late November, a woman in Anahuac was killed in a rare feral hog attack. In October 2018, a 2-year-old girl in Alvin was mauled to death by the family dog.