A very inaccurate and obviously exaggerated fact was reported in Sylvie Belmond’s front-page article [“Malibu Road dispute reaches the council,” March 15] where she writes, “[A] group of about 10 Malibu Road residents … asked the council for help.” In fact, there were four (4) speakers in the pack. So more than doubling the number is just plain erroneous and apparently a means to sensationalize the report. Nidia and I demand a retraction.
According to Lt. Thom Bradstock of the Sheriff’s Department, who was in attendance for the sneak attack, “My take on it was they were complaining because they can’t do something that’s simply illegal [walking dogs on the beach].” He was skeptical about complaints of alleged serious crimes that were never reported to the Sheriff, rather reported belatedly, to the City Council, a political group. Were they looking for protection and justice, or just power and influence?
I also find it odd reporting that after your recent front-page, multiple-article coverage of the San Francisco dog murder, and all of the letters on the issue, that you “bury” the Malibu mauling by dogs in Decker Canyon last week as just a little “bit” piece (pun). Now that news item is sensational and local in its own truthful telling. But it is not so poIitically charged.
When the parents of two small children wanted to testify in favor of keeping dogs on leash at the National Park Service hearing for the Golden Gate Recreation Area in San Francisco in January, “Park police were called in to keep the peace when nearly 500 people jammed outside a packed hearing room … [they began] banging on windows and chanting ‘No leashes! No leashes!’ … the atmosphere was so hostile that [the parents] had to be escorted out by police for their own safety.” (The New York Times, March 25.) It seems that the dog owners, there and here in Malibu, tend to resemble their snarling, snapping dogs, not vice versa, as is commonly said.
Man’s best friend (not kids’) will bite 4.7 million Americans every year, more than 60 percent of them children according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More children are seriously injured by dog bites than are taken ill by measles, mumps and whooping cough combined, according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
“Somebody offered a $25,000 reward for information on kidnapping of a child, and at the same time there was a reward of nearly twice that amount to find the killer of a dog,” said Ed Sayres, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in San Francisco. “As someone who advocates for humane treatment of animals, I have serious questions over what that says about our culture.”
What it says is that dog lovers like those at the City Council would rather attack people than protect children.
Sam and Nidia Birenbaum