Grisly details emerge in February dog attack
An elderly Air Force veteran killed by two pit bulls on San Antonio’s West Side earlier this year suffered severe lacerations to his right arm and “deep bites to the rest of his body,” according to a police report recently obtained by the Express-news.
His widow, who survived, suffered several severe lacerations to her right leg during the attack.
Officers found “large puddles of blood in the grass where the attack occurred,” that police report stated.
The San Antonio Police Department document provides new details on the Feb. 24 mauling that sparked a outcry across the city.
Ramon Najera Jr., 81, and his wife, Juanita “Janie” Najera, now 75, had driven to the home of a friend, a seamstress who lived next door to the dogs in the 2800 block of Depla Street around 1:45 p.m. that day with hopes of getting a pair of pants hemmed. But their friend wasn’t home when they arrived at her cul de sac, located near U.S. 90.
The seamstress’ grandson told police that the Najeras asked if they could leave something for his grandmother. He told them yes, at which point the Leon Valley couple returned to their car, the police report shows.
Three dogs belonging to husband and wife Christian Alexander Moreno, 31, and Abilene Schnieder, also 31, escaped their fenced yard next door. Two of those animals attacked the Najeras, while the third dog ran loose, officials have said.
The seamstress’ grandson said he heard Juanita Najera screaming and looked out his window to see her being attacked by dogs, the police report shows. The grandson said he walked outside to help the elderly couple. The dogs turned on him and bit him in the left hand and the right knee.
A neighbor who witnessed the mauling told police he saw two large dogs attacking both of the Najeras and the grandson, the police report stated. That witness reported Janie Najera’s left leg was pinned between the wheel of her car and the street curb. The neighbor tried to scare off the dogs with a garden hose before San Antonio firefighters arrived and tried to stop the dog attack.
Another neighbor tried to end the mauling with a rake. Still another drove up to the scene and sounded her car horn to frighten the dogs, to no avail.
A graphic 53-second video filmed by a witness showed one of the dogs relentlessly biting Najera, tearing off parts of his clothes, then ripping a dialysis shunt out of his body as Najera yelled for help and tried desperately to get away. The video shows the other dog standing nearby in the street, barking loudly, its face and neck stained with blood, not allowing witnesses to get close.
Schnieder and Moreno will soon have a chance to review those details and others in the police reports, Animal Care Services documents, medical records, video footage and a raft of other evidence that prosecutors have amassed while building a case against them.
The dog owners are charged with two felonies apiece in connection with the deadly mauling.
Schnieder and Moreno remain free on bond after each of them was charged with dangerous dog attack causing death and recklessly causing injury to an elderly person. A Bexar County grand jury indicted them on those charges in August.
If convicted of the dog attack charge, a second-degree felony, Schnieder and Moreno each faces up to 20 years in prison. If convicted of recklessly causing injury to a senior citizen, a state jail felony, they each face up to two years in a state jail facility.
During a brief pretrial court appearance Tuesday, a judge ordered Schnieder to return to court Oct. 25, when prosecutors are expected to turn over all investigative documents and video footage to the defense.
“The judge wants to make sure we’re getting off on the right foot,” Schnieder’s attorney, Manuel C. Rodriguez Jr., said after leaving the courtroom. “And that has to do with discovery, to make sure that (prosecutors) turn over to us everything that they have.”
Schnieder declined to comment as she left the courtroom with relatives.
Moreno, who appeared in the same courtroom last week, sat quietly with his wife Tuesday, putting his arm around her shoulders before she was called up to State District Judge Velia Meza’s bench for several minutes with her attorney and the prosecutor on the case.
Moreno is expected to return to court with Schnieder on Oct. 25.
Prosecutor Jeff Mulliner said he has “probably 90 percent” of the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office’s evidence “ready to give to them on a zip drive today.” But the next three weeks “will allow me to put together the final 10 percent,” he added Tuesday.
Moreno and Schnieder weren’t home when their dogs went on the rampage but returned while the animals were still loose and terrorizing bystanders, the witness’ video showed. By that point, Najera was face down and unresponsive next to the street.
Najera had lost consciousness when firefighters arrived. The crew tried to fend off the dogs using axes and poles while standing on top of a car.
A fire captain also was bitten in the right calf while trying to keep the dogs at bay.
“Get them away from us!” the fire captain yelled at Moreno and Schnieder, according to a video that the local Univision TV station posted on social media. “Your dog bit me and possibly killed another person.”
The couple then took the dogs inside their house.
Both of the Najeras were rushed to University Hospital.
Ramon Najera Jr. was pronounced dead about 45 minutes after the dog attack.
Animal Care Services took custody of all three dogs that day. They were later euthanized.
Moreno told a police officer on the day of the mauling that the dogs had broken through his front yard fence, the SAPD report shows.
The grand jury indictments accuse Moreno and Schnieder of failing to restrain their animals, and of maintaining a fence that was too short and had numerous holes through which their dogs could go in and out, District Attorney Joe Gonzales said in August.
“If you’re going to own a vicious dog, you have an obligation to do everything to secure that dog on your premises, that you ensure that you have fences that are high enough that dogs cannot jump over them, that you ensure that your fences don’t have holes or other exits where dogs can escape,” Gonzales said at the time.
Before her arrest, Schnieder publicly proclaimed her husband’s innocence on her Facebook page, writing that they didn’t abuse or neglect their pets.
Janie Najera has filed a lawsuit against Moreno, Schnieder and Moreno’s father, Carlos Moreno, who owned the Depla Street house where the couple lived at the time of the dog attack.
In court papers, all three lawsuit defendants have denied any wrongdoing.
The Najeras were married for 45 years. Ramon Najera was an energetic man “who loved to dance to Tejano music” and was a big fan of the “West Side Sounds,” such as Sonny Ozuna & the Sunliners, his obituary said.
He traveled the world during his 21-year Air Force career before retiring as a master sergeant and returning home to San Antonio. He loved planning family vacation trips, collecting art, collecting coins and landscaping his yard, even winning Leon Valley’s beautification award, the memorial tribute reported.
“He continued to work as a security guard. His strong work ethic made him very reliable,” Najera’s obituary stated. “He readily accepted last-minute calls to work on the weekends, evenings or Sundays.
“He perished saving his loving wife,” the obituary noted.
Najera was the first of two people to die as a result of a dog attack in San Antonio this year.
The other was Paul Anthony Striegl Jr., 47, who died in a local hospital Sunday night, nearly a month after he was bitten and critically injured by his nextdoor neighbor’s dog at a Northeast Side trailer park.
The dog that attacked Striegl also was euthanized by Animal Care Services.