Irresponsible pet owners, part one ...

From the Monday, Sep. 27, 2004 edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Girl OK after pit bull attack
Dogs' owner is shot; 1 of 2 pets is killed
Charles Yoo - Staff
Monday, September 27, 2004

Mercedes Smith, 12, tried to get away from the two pit bulls that were mauling her head, a sight neighbors watched in disbelief.
"Somebody help me!" the seventh-grader yelled repeatedly.
Candice Cameron pleaded for the lives of her pets. "Don't shoot my dogs!" she said, according to witnesses.
Mercedes eventually freed herself from the dogs that other neighbors had complained about roaming without leashes. She later underwent reconstructive surgery of her ear and scalp and was in stable condition Sunday at Hughes Spalding Children's Hospital.
In the course of the commotion early Sunday morning, one dog was killed and the other eventually placed with animal control. Cameron was wounded by one of eight shots a neighbor heard fired. She is in stable condition at DeKalb Medical Center.
Police are still trying to piece together what happened, why the animals decided to attack Mercedes, how they had become loose and what the girl was doing outside after midnight. No one was arrested or charged Sunday.
"This is an ongoing investigation," said Officer Dale Davis, a spokesman for the DeKalb Police Department.
Police responded to the 911 call from the Orchard Lane condominium and apartment complex off Flat Shoals Road in Decatur, near the Gallery at South DeKalb, shortly before 1 a.m. The caller said two dogs were attacking a neighborhood girl.
Witnesses say the pit bulls, cocoa-colored and muscular, would not let go of Mercedes, who could not stand up.
The dogs, they said, only stuck to her face.
By then, a circle of shocked neighbors and family members had formed, and men whacked the dogs with sticks and poles.
Still, the animals did not budge, witnesses said.
Police identified Cameron, 28, who lives on Jackybell Trail, as the dogs' owners. Police did not say why or how Cameron got injured, particularly whether the bullet pierced her when she was defending the dogs.
"She was shot," Davis said. "We are following up on it."
Adrian Moreland, a neighbor, said he heard eights shots but didn't know who pulled the trigger.
"But somebody was shooting the dogs," he said.
Neighbors said one pit bull was shot and killed, which police could not confirm.
The other one will be monitored for the next 10 days by the county animal control department.
Lynne Reid said she could not recognize Mercedes, who is friends with Reid's 13-year-old daughter, Danielle.
"It was as if someone had poured a bucket of red paint all over her," Reid said.
The same dogs chased Danielle in the past, Reid said.
Three months ago, she called police and told an animal control officer that the pit bulls were a menace, roaming the neighborhood, she said.
"I have never seen the dogs on a leash," said Reid, adding that Mercedes' injuries were "a sight I never want to see again."