A Brooklyn man was arrested yesterday by an ASPCA agent for allegedly starving his three-year-old pit bull named Drew. According to a release, Leedell Walker brought Drew to the ASPCA's Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital in December claiming that the dog refused to eat. Concerned vets called the ASPCA and the organization launched an investigation. When he was brought in, Drew "was near death, in a critical state of shock and anemic," and weighed 37 pounds. He now weighs 65 pounds and is still recovering so that he may be adopted. more ›

A Brooklyn officer who fatally shot a pit bull who attacked him and his partner has been docked 10 vacation days after a two-and-a-half year investigation. Officer Andre Jeter pleaded guilty to departmental charges in the 2009 shooting of the pit bull, to avoid an NYPD trial. Jeter was accused of shooting the dog an excessive number of times during the altercation. “It is an unusually heavy penalty for a dog shooting. But it shows how they go over every shooting with a fine-tooth comb,” a police source told the News. more ›

Forty-six people, aged 17 to 63, were arrested yesterday on drugs charges as part of a seven month sting operation at the LeFrak City housing complex in Queens. In a release [pdf], the Queens DA's office alleges that many of the drugs—which included cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and prescription medication—were distributed at a licensed day care center in LeFrak city. Note to drug dealers: using day care centers to store drugs is passé. more ›

A pit bull that had been on the run for three weeks was killed by police yesterday outside a daycare center on Long Island. The pit bull is believed to be the same one who mauled a North Merrick woman after she exercised outside a senior center near her home Sept. 29. Newsday reports (paywall) that Shashi Sharma, 62, was attacked by a female pit bull and her mate, and needed three separate surgeries to repair torn flesh and shredded muscle in all four of her limbs. more ›

The Nassau County DA's office has indicted two men on felony animal cruelty charges for allegedly operating a dog fighting ring. Marlon Bernier, 25, and Ricardo Louis, 22, are charged with rearing pit bulls, "training the dogs to fight, pitting them against one another, and breeding the strongest dogs." CBS reports they then sold the dogs through their website, BlueMagicPitz.com for around $700 apiece. Authorities seized nine dogs in a raid from a home in Elmont, "many with fresh wounds from recent fights," and two of the animals required urgent medical treatment. more ›

You can repeatedly punch a handcuffed man in the face and not do any jail time if you're an NYPD officer, a judge essentially ruled yesterday when he declined to sentence ex-cop John Cicero to jail. Cicero, you may recall, was caught on video last year beating a handcuffed man during a roundup at a Bronx housing project. The incident happened after undercover narcotics cops were hit by bullet fragments fired by a colleague at a pit bull. Cicero admitted to repeatedly slamming Jonathan Baez's head into the ground because Baez reportedly told him it should have been Cicero, not the dog, who should have been shot and killed. more ›

Firefighters responding to an apartment fire at 2186 Grand Concourse in the Bronx yesterday got a bit of a surprise when they got through the door of apartment 6J. 14 pit bulls, including a number of puppies, were barking and fighting inside the smoke-filled apartment. Because the dogs were fighting, firefighters sprayed chemical extinguisher on them to break them up. After that smoke inhalation seemed to calm the canines down and they were carried to safety. more ›

Police mistakenly shot and killed a pit bull in the Bronx today while responding to a domestic dispute call. Lillian Martinez told the Post that she called police in the evening on Feb. 18 during a heated verbal argument with her husband, Anthony; cops had been called to the home for domestic violence at least once before. Cops were greeted at the door by their four-year-old red-nosed pit bull, Loc: “My husband heard the echo of the dog barking and clapped his hands twice. Before the dog could respond to him, there was one shot, then a second shot. My husband said he was shot in the head.” more ›

There are bad dog owners who, say, don't pick up after their pets and then there are bad dog owners who, say, use their 60-pound pit bull as a personal weapon to attack women around the neighborhood. Meet Staten Islanders Elise Guzman and John Chan, both 22. That happy couple today were charged with assault and reckless endangerment after their pit bull Cash viciously attacked two Grasmere women, one 19-years-old and one 45, over the course of two days last May. more ›

Yesterday we learned that dog owners are packing heat (okay, knives and billy clubs and hammers) at the Tompkins Square dog run, as a means of protection against possible pit bull attacks (there have been at least 5 on dogs and 2 on humans since September). What do the pit bull owners think of this? DNA Info says they're shrugging it off; pit bull Lily's owner, Dennis, says "Dogs aren't born bad, they're made bad," and his was made sweet! more ›

It's back to the Bad Old Days in Tompkins Square Park, where dog owners have begun carrying assorted weapons to protect themselves and their pooches against vicious attacks. According to DNA Info, the residents are carrying knives, hammers, billy clubs, and metal rods to the park after recent pit bull attacks at the dog run there. Local dog owner Garrett Rosso listed all of the attacks in a recent letter to the editor at the Villager, explaining five dogs and three people have been brought to the hospital during a two-month time span. more ›

Early this morning, a pair of vicious pit bulls broke free from their home in the Bronx and attacked two people walking down the street. According to the Daily News, the dogs bit the 55-year-old man and 25-year-old woman on the feet and legs as they ran from them around 12:30 a.m. more ›

A drug bust in Springfeild Gardens led cops to a homemade zoo inside a home housing three geckos, two marmosets, three tarantulas, a monitor lizard, a snake, a baby caiman and two iguanas. Animal control was called in to bring in the illegal animals along with seven adult pitbulls, a bulldog and a puppy pitbull with cropped ears. An 84-year-old man who lives nearby said, "This is a nice block. Sometimes things like this happen, but I'm not leaving." [via NYDN]
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DJ Honda is known for giving famous rappers a mean scratch, but apparently his pitbulls have a reputation of possessing a nasty bite. The Japanese turntablist and Lower East Side resident is accused of letting one of his unleashed pit bulls eat the face off of a fluffy Yorkshire terrier named Bebe—an injury that required $4,000 in surgery to repair. Bebe's owner, Christine Chin, a celebrity facialist whose clients include Kate Moss and Penelope Cruz, told the Post, "I feel so bullied and so helpless. I said to my husband, 'Should we get a gun now?'" Neighbors of Honda's say that this wasn't an isolated incident, one couple recounting one of the DJ's three pitbulls biting their dog on the neck as he trailed "in pajama trousers with no shirt on." Honda's dog walker denies that the pooches are violent and gives her own account of the Bebe skirmish claiming, "(Bebe's owner) said, 'Is it OK if Bebe says hello to the dogs?' One of my babies said hello and then Bebe snapped and started growling. Then my baby bit her. If Bebe didn't start growling, my dog wouldn't have bit her." more ›

Following a string of horrific attacks by pit bulls on civilians, one pit bull has actually turned hero. In an incident that occurred early Thursday morning, a stranger punched his way through the half-gated window of a young woman's bedroom in Rockland County--across the Hudson River and a few miles north from NYC. The assailant, apparently intent on raping the woman, climbed onto her bed and proceeded to punch her in the face several times. more ›

The 90-year-old man mauled by a neighbor's pit bulls yesterday morning had his left leg amputated. Henry Piotrowski's niece said he will probably lose one of his arms. more ›

While an 11-year-old boy remain in critical condition after being shot in the face, Suffolk Country police believe his father was the real target. Newsday reports that Jeffrey Langhorn's father had apparently "fought with" a group of men "before one of them fired three shots." more ›