San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Justice awaited in S.A. dog attack cases
San Antonio witnessed a string of serious dog attacks last year, two of them fatal. Victims and their families face a long road in getting justice.
Here’s a look at where four of the highest-profile cases stand.
Ramon Najera Jr.
Najera, 81, an Air Force veteran, and his wife, Juanita, then 74, were visiting a friend on San Antonio’s West Side on Feb. 24, 2023, when pit bulls escaped from a fenced yard next door.
Two of the dogs went on an unprovoked rampage. Ramon Najera took the worst of it. A bystander’s 53-second cellphone video showed one of the dogs savaging Najera as he cried for help and tried to get away. At one point, the dog ripped a dialysis shunt from Najera’s body before he lost consciousness.
Najera suffered “bone-exposing bite and skin and muscle-shredding wounds on his arms and other parts of his body,” court records show. He was pronounced dead at University Hospital.
Juanita also was attacked by the dogs and was hospitalized for several days. Two people who tried to stop the mayhem — a neighbor and a San Antonio Fire Department captain — also were bitten before the animals were contained.
The Najeras had driven to their friend’s house in the 2800 block of Depla Street to ask her to hem a pair of pants for Ramon, who was about to start a new job as a security guard.
The dogs’ owners, Christian Alexander Moreno and his wife, Abilene Schnieder, both 32, are expected to stand trial together this year. They’re each charged with two felonies: dangerous dog attack causing death and recklessly causing bodily injury to an elderly person. Both are free on bail.
The couple’s defense attorneys — Jorge Aristotelidis; Meredith Chacon, a former candidate for Bexar County district attorney; Manuel C. Rodriguez Jr.; and Eduardo Garcia — are working together to present a united defense.
Chacon filed a motion last month that accused Bexar County prosecutors of not giving the defense attorneys access to all city records about the attack. She asked that prosecutors be ordered to provide a complete copy of their files for inspection.
The defense has subpoenaed all documents, memos, notes, audio and video recordings, emails, text messages and other city communications about the dogs.
In another motion, Aristotelidis sought to dismiss the criminal charges based on what he described as “outrageous governmental conduct” by San Antonio Animal Care Services. That court filing said the two dogs that mauled the Najeras had been involved in two previous attacks, one just six weeks before Najera died.
During a court hearing last month, ACS Lt. Bethany Snowden testified that the dogs were quarantined for 10 days after that earlier incident, in which they attacked a man in an alleyway, biting him in the leg and shoulder. Snowden described the injuries as “moderate.”
“We did everything that we needed to do, which was to get the dogs into quarantine,” Snowden testified. “The owners complied with everything. It’s their property. They get the dogs back.”
Aristotelidis argued that ACS should have registered the dogs as “dangerous,” which would have required the owners to take out a $100,000 insurance policy, keep the dogs in an enclosure unless they were restrained by leashes and muzzles, allow annual inspections of their home and take a “responsible pet ownership” class, among other things.
Instead, the dogs were sterilized, then returned to the couple without restrictions.
Moreno and Schnieder should have been required “to relinquish the dogs for euthanization,” Aristotelidis contended. If they had been, Najera would be alive, he argued: “Bottom line, dead dogs cannot kill or injure people.”
The judge has not ruled on Aristotelidis’ motion to dismiss the charges. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for April 10.
The couple are forbidden from owning or possessing any dogs or firearms while awaiting trial, court records show.
Max De Los Santos Jr.
Late one night, De Los Santos was in his West Side backyard when he realized he didn’t have his house keys.
Not wanting to wake up his sleeping family members, he walked out to his driveway to look for the keys. It was 1:45 a.m. Aug. 16. That’s when he was attacked in his yard by a German shepherd and a pit bull that had escaped from a neighbor’s property across the street in the 7400 block of Fieldgate.
The two dogs shredded his right leg, exposing tendons, muscles and bone from his knee to his foot. The animals also ravaged the back of his left leg, tore gaping holes in his right arm and ripped off part of his right ear. Dog bites covered his back.
The dogs dragged De Los Santos, then 76, across his yard, flat on his back, as he yelled for help. The attack stopped only when the frenzy woke up his next-door neighbor, Rudy Pantoja Jr., who ran outside. Pantoja used a tall metal camera pole to force the dogs away from De Los Santos. Pantoja was bitten by the German shepherd while trying to help.
Doctors later had to amputate both of De Los Santos’ legs above the knees. He endured 14 surgeries and spent more than six months in hospitals and rehabilitation centers — marking his 77th birthday in one such facility — before he was finally released
to go home Feb. 22.
Beatrice, his wife of more than 30 years, takes care of him.
The dogs had been living at the home of Danielle Henderson, now 33. Henderson owned the pit bull, a 2-year-old female named Buttercup. The German shepherd, a 6-year-old male named Cash, belonged to her mother, Shelly Gonzales. ACS euthanized both animals after the mauling.
A Bexar County grand jury indicted Henderson on a felony charge of dangerous dog attack causing serious bodily injury. She was arrested Dec. 6 and has since been released on $25,000 bail. She is prohibited from possessing any dogs or firearms while awaiting trial.
Henderson feels great remorse for what happened to De Los Santos, her attorney said.
“She feels terrible about the whole thing,” said criminal defense attorney Roger Perez. “She’s never had any issue like this before. She’s got a clean record and just feels terrible about this matter.”
Paul Anthony Striegl Jr.
Striegl was sitting in his yard, smoking a cigarette, in a trailer park on the Northeast Side when his next-door neighbor’s two American Staffordshire terriers slipped under a chain-link fence. It happened on Sept. 5. Striegl died in a hospital less than a month later.
Before his death, Striegl, 47, gave an ACS investigator an account of the attack. When the
female terrier approached Striegl to be petted, the male dog nipped at her. Striegl said he chided the male, and “he got jealous.”
The dog bit both of Striegl’s arms down to the bone and tore off a large section of his abdominal skin, testimony showed. Doctors at Brooke Army Medical Center had to amputate Striegl’s left forearm.
At first, Striegl’s condition seemed to stabilize. Then he suffered a stroke. He developed three fungal infections and went into heart, kidney and liver failure. He also suffered a collapsed lung and was placed on a breathing machine before he died Oct. 1.
“Bitten, sick, dying, dead,” Striegl’s sister, Delila Higgins, later wrote on a GoFundMe page that raised funds for his memorial. “This tragic end didn’t have to be.”
The dogs’ owner, Gregory Leon Palmer, 54, was at work when the attack occurred. He said his girlfriend’s mother let the animals outside without his knowledge or permission.
No criminal charges were filed against him. Instead, ACS issued three criminal citations to him.
The dog that attacked Striegl was euthanized. The female was spayed and returned to Palmer because investigators determined she didn’t hurt anyone.
Raymond Zamora
On Sept. 21, Zamora, 53,
crossed paths with a man and his dog on a sidewalk on North Colorado near West Martin streets on the West Side.
The two men argued before the dog, a 3-year-old Presa Canario, attacked Zamora, inflicting severe lacerations on the left side of his neck, a police report shows.
The dog’s owner, Marcus Anthony Davila, 40, was holding the animal on a leash. But Zamora said Davila ordered the dog to attack him and then failed to pull the animal off him, the report shows.
The bite wounds exposed Zamora’s trachea and the tissue surrounding one of his carotid arteries, court records show. He was initially reported to be in serious condition at University Hospital, but was later released.
Davila was arrested on felony charges of dog attack causing serious bodily injury and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He is free on $90,000 bail while he awaits possible indictment by a Bexar County grand jury. Davila is a general contractor and movie producer, court records state.
The dog was euthanized. Davila was initially placed on full house arrest and ordered to wear a GPS device to track his whereabouts, court records show. He is forbidden to possess any dogs or firearms, must report to pretrial services once a week in person and must undergo drug and alcohol testing while the charges are pending.
Last month, a judge agreed to release Davila from full house arrest so he could work and earn money to pay his legal fees and his family’s housing costs, court records show. However, he still must wear the GPS monitor at all times.
His defense attorney, Marc LaHood, said he believes evidence will show the dog was trying to defend its owner and that this was a justified case of self-defense.
ACS updates
In the past 18 months, ACS has issued citations to more than 3,000 pet owners for allowing their dogs to run free.
Since Oct. 1, ACS has added at least 20 new officers to its responder and investigative teams.
That influx of personnel came after City Council increased the agency’s budget by 33%, the biggest percentage boost granted to any city department this year.
The agency will conduct a loose dog survey this summer to identify problematic areas throughout the city to help guide future enforcement. It’s also launched an online dangerous dog registry at SAACS.info/DogLaws. Members of the public can search it to find where dogs deemed dangerous are located.