8-month-old dies after dog attack

Girl in bouncy chair was bitten at home, police say

A baby girl in a bouncy chair died Wednesday after one of her family’s three pit bulls attacked her.

The 8-month-old child was in the care of a grandmother during Wednesday’s attack outside the home in the 2400 block of Kingston Drive, police said.

“She was the best thing to ever happen to me,” Brenda Villasin told reporters about her daughter, Liana Valino. “She was my world.”

Villasin said before she goes to work, she drops off her daughter at the grandmother’s home. “Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks they are going to lose the person they love,” Villasin said, according to WPLG-Ch. 10.

The baby was bitten about 11:30 a.m. when “the child was in a bedroom and was in a bouncy chair,” Miramar Police Officer Yessenia Diaz said.

The male pit bull was 3 or 4 years old and was raised by the family since it was a puppy, Diaz said. Its sibling and mother, both pit bulls, also are kept by the family.

Early Wednesday afternoon, all three dogs were removed from the property. “I don’t know what the outcome will be of the dog [suspected in the attack],” Diaz said.

Jackie Knapp, of New Jersey, was visiting her sister, Ivelisse Machado, who lives down the street from where the baby was attacked.

Before the sisters knew the child died, they prayed together for a miracle, Knapp said.

“We went in and started praying, asking for this baby to survive,” she said.

Knapp’s voice broke as she spoke about the incident and said she empathized deeply for the baby and her family.

“The minute I heard the baby was attacked, I felt like I knew her,” Knapp said. “They’re never going to get through that. It’s a big loss.”

Machado said she walks her pugs around the neighborhood and hasn’t seen the pit bulls before, and has only heard them bark as she passed by.

At the time of the emergency, Miramar firefighters were called to the address to respond to a dog bite, but their help wasn’t needed, Inspector Lt. José A. Gregorisch said.

CARLINE JEAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER One of three dogs who belonged to the family is loaded into a Broward County Animal Control truck on Wednesday in Miramar. Authorities are investigating the fatal attack. Police said the family had owned the dog since it was a puppy.

BRENDA VILLASI/ COURTESY “She was my world,” mom Brenda Villasin said of daughter Liana Valino.

JOE CAVARETTA/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER A Miramar police officer comforts an unidentified man outside a home in the 2400 block of Kingston Drive in Miramar, where an 8-month-old girl was bitten by a family pit bull and died from her injuries Wednesday.