911 what's the address to your emergency yes um yes ma'am it's uh Barry rid home Home Development there's a little boy being attacked by two dogs does he know the dogs no and they're they're literally tugging on him please hurry he's not moving I'm I'm like a few feet away he's not moving the boy that is being attacked he was screaming for help and I pinned him down on the ground and they're like biting him but he's not moving and he's not responding and uh we'll start off by just telling you what a horrific uh horrific incident this was you know last night at about 4:55 p.m. our victim Michael Millet 8 years old was out on his bike with one of his friends and at the entrance to their subdivision uh he stops and goes to pet one of these dogs that's out there and at that point Michael is maliciously mauled brutally mauled and killed uh at the scene uh we are working closely with animal control services uh during this investigation Animal Control took custody of the two dogs that were responsible uh we're now awaiting the owner's response of whether to sign the dogs over or whether we have to go to court and fight over how we're going to proceed with this uh so it's the beginning stage stages of an investigation we are going to do everything humanly possible to hold the owner of these dogs responsible and we're going to do everything possible to make sure that these animals are destroyed and with that I'm going to turn it over to Angela because she's the one who's spearheading what's going on right now so Angela hello everyone I'm Angela MMA the animal services director for fuchia County and let me start off by saying this is a very rare and a very tragic circumstance that we have today we were able to gain control of the dogs yesterday in an expeditious manner um and Humane manner unfortunately the owner has not signed over permission for Humane euthanasia at this point but that may be coming in the near future um the dogs are confiscated and they are under a 10-day quarantine and the owner has the ability to appeal with due process it is our responsibility at animal services to investigate all concerns of stray animals or aggressive animals in the community and we strongly encourage anybody who is observing an animal that is stray or observing a nuisance animal or aggressive animal to report it to us or your respective jurisdiction animal control that is the only way that we can work on preventing any of these concerns I I would ask I would join in there with Angela and asking any body in this community who has any information pertaining to these animals or the owner of these animals to please reach out for either animal control or law enforcement you know as we went door too last night we heard horrific stories of how the dogs are always at large of how they destroy chickens and we've gotten some information from another County that there's possible that they were involved in some other type of an incident there in another County we're following up on that so I don't need people to be afraid right now I need people to come forward and tell us because there's no 911 calls uh to animal services or to the Sheriff's Office about this address or about these about these animals and clearly this just didn't happen in a vacuum you know these dogs have been terrorizing in the neighborhood for a while and nobody decided to to call us yeah I I will tell you the injuries that Michael sustained and we were there this morning to to the to the autopsy were just horrific they were just horrific to what happened to that little boy and and I can tell you in all my years of policing to listen to that 911 call and hear Michael's mother in the background when she Dove on top of him to stop the attack screaming somebody help me my child's not breathing it strikes to the core of who we are as human beings so you know I can't say enough I know Angela and my detectives can't say enough to the family I don't know where to go to begin other than the fact that we're going to seek Justice for Michael will anything happen to the of the dogs we are looking and we're working closely with animal services my detectives are working closely we are looking State Attorney has been involved in this from the very beginning we are looking really hard at making sure the owner is charged that's that's the ultimate goal is to charge her and destroy the animals that's where we want to go we're not there right now but that's where she needs to be held accountable where was the owner when all of this was going on did she was good unfortunately not sure of that information right now she was not from from what we understand she was not on property at the time she was somewhere else cuz when they reached out to her she wasn't in the area she had to come to to the house was the young man attacked in his yard was he just on his bike he was on his bike if you go if if you went out the crime scene and you go out the uh the subdivision entr there was a bunch of mailboxes there that's where him Michael and his friends encounter the two dogs and they get off their bikes and they go to pet the dogs and it goes from a petting and a very friendly encounter to the dogs become very very very vicious and very violent presumably they were just roaming around the dogs yes it does appear um as the detectives have done significant amount of work and significant amount of interviews that this is a regular appearance for these dogs they have been previously found to run stray it's just unfortunate that nobody actually reported it to animal services in this circumstance and it is a bigger responsibility pet ownership is an enormous responsibility and something that we continue to work and educate on at Animal Services it's one of our main priorities that you have a lot of responsibilities as a dog owner to keep your animal confined to your property and ensure the public safety as well as assure things like socialization and training to make sure that this animal is not a threat to anybody else you talk about socialization two dogs next to a child a child is a non-threatening entity dealing with these dogs keep you see any reason why they were trained not to be socialized or trained not to you know or anything along that lines to be aggressive unfortunately without more information or cooperation from the owner or details into their history I wouldn't be able to say where their socialization standards were before um they were appearing freely roaming um without an incident prior but in this circumstance I wasn't present for the actual incident so I could not be able to say so it's pending investigation does the owner have a history the owner has a significant uh history uh a lot of it has to do with drugs she's on supervised uh uh weekly drug tests she's been arrested for possession of meth for possession of cocaine uh for battery domestic violence aggravated battery with a deadly weapon uh attempted aggravated assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill attempted battery cause bodily harm or disability cocaine possession possession uh possession of pres prescription Controlled Substances possession of drug paraphernalia uh violation of probation explain the process of what happens when when a ATT someone was fatal full tragedy what has to happen in court if if the decides it looks like she is not cooperating we have to prove negligence as the Bottom bar I'm not the state attorney's office but I can tell you what animal control and our detectives and the medical examiner is doing is right now is number one is every one of his 12 bite wounds have been swabbed for DNA so we can conclusively say that these two dogs that they have in custody are the dogs responsible for Michael's death okay then we'll move forward with what did she know what steps did she take as you heard Angela say you have a responsibility as a dog owner to make sure that your your animals are in a fence in property they're not danger to anybody else so there all of that has to go on to this and like I said we have been in contact with the state attorney since last night to just try to walk the ball through here uh and for me like I said the ultimate goal for me for the Sheriff's Office and for animal control is to see that Michael gets Justice sh um um I I guess from my understanding you guys have located the owner right we have located the owner and the dogs were found on her property oh well she helped to tell you how they even apprehended the dogs yes so actually it was the deputies that chased the dog back to the property so these dogs reacted to their presence and went back to the property upon our arrival they had actually already closed the gate the deputies did but that gate was open upon their arrival so they entered that property the property is not fully fenced um they had the ability to get out of that property but we're very experienced in what we do and we do it quickly and we do it safely to assure the public safety and we're able to confiscate and hold the animals in a Humane manner how far was that property from the location where this little boy was attacked I don't know exact mil I think it was roughly half mile from where he was to there the woman who owns the dogs is Amanda Franco is who who she is you said the mom on the child did she get injured no and I think that's something we talked about and Angela can go into that more was you have this frenzied attack in which Michael was was I mean it was brutal what what they did to him and Mom jumps on him and the dogs never attack mom they never attack any of the kids in the area they flee from the deputies I think Angela will tell you how one of them she was able to coax one of them uh to come so she could collar it and take it take it into custody but it there's a 911 caller who is describing everything that's going on to the 911 operator and she's screaming for somebody to get her her gun because she wants to go out there cuz the dogs won't let Michael go and then at a point in the background you hear he's not bre you hear this this heart-wrenching voice that's Mom on top of him he's not breathing somebody help me he's not he's not breathing somebody help me and the dogs are still there according to the 911 call the dogs are standing right there while mom is shielding him and trying to do CPR bring him or bring him back you know how many parents last night hugged their kids and kissed them and said good night I love you and here we have a mother who's fighting evil and trying to revive her son how long did the attack go off the 911 call is probably 10 minutes long um I I I don't know I I don't know maybe Angela link can answer that better than I can but um and I'm speculating on the on on the autopsy I I don't think uh Michael suffered a long time um we were able to apprehend the what we believe is a pitbull terrier um gray and white and very large in size probably about 70 lbs um the dog actually came over appearing in a social seeking manner came over with wagging tail um comes to high pitch voices and I was able to place a leash on it actually initially um and then obviously we used a catch pull for safety measures and then the other dog what we believe is a katola or some kind of hurting breed mix um was much more difficult that one took us at least an hour to um safely confiscate and that was us running around the property for a significant period of time um but we were able to actually confiscate them in a quick Manner and assure the public safety as well as our first responder safety which is my end goal always he momam so you believe that one dog started the attack and the other one join in it's hard to see right now um we actually brought in a dog bite related fatality expert and he's currently working with the medical examiner to try to see if the evidence gives us that information what is your message to the community um obviously the neighbors there and the parents of Michael are completely just my message is that there's a lot again there's a lot of responsibility when you have are a pet owner you have a responsibility to ensure the public safety a responsibility to that animal um a responsibility to make sure that animals being cared for tended for and raised right the same way we do kids um it's it's a responsibility even if you don't have an animal to say something if you see something did you talk to the owner of the dog I mean is there a reason why she's not forfeiting the dogs knowing what happened I I can't speculate as to why I I will tell you being arrested nine times she's pretty well versed in invoking her Fifth Amendment rights I mean I think she knew right then and there she lawyered up immediately she knows what's coming coming down be sayfe to say because the mom kind of went over him she do she according to the 911 car the 911 call is on the phone describing everything she talks about oh my God it's his mother she's covering she's laying on top of him and you can hear her screaming the mother screaming he's not breathing he's not breathing please somebody help me and the 911 caller is on the phone saying and the dogs are right there and she's screaming at people get away get away they just attack somebody they're going to attack you get away get away get away and she's screaming for somebody in her house to get her gun and she's telling the 911 operator I'm going to go out there and shoot these dogs before they they do this to somebody else so preliminarily at this point you guys are aware that the little boy tried to P the dog no no aggressive action from from what the detectives have gathered is that the little boys are out riding the bike they see the dogs out by the mailboxes and they get off their bike and they start petting the dog and at no point in time was there any indication that they were going to attack and then like a light switch went off then they went right into attack mode and from the bite wounds the both dogs were attacking them you know who you want to assign more bites to they'll they'll determine that later on but he he significantly significantly was was attacked and he was attacked by both uh in in my time as police chief and Sheriff we've always had a good relationship with animal control but under our new public safety director and our new animal control director uh the residents of Vala County can rest assur they have an extremely professional well-trained group of men and women that are working there and the fact that they they were out there they were out there very quickly they were engaged in this entire investigation working closely with our investigators that means a lot you know we were out there on December 5th or they were out there on December 5th but for a different call because we had information that you guys were out there before and you didn't do anything that that's not true so shut down the the rumor mill they were out there on M 5th it had something to do with completely different animal not these two animals