Aurora – The bus from Yale Elementary School had just dropped off its students Wednesday in the Kingsborough neighborhood.
Halloween decorations were still up at most of the homes on Asbury Avenue. And 10-year-old Gregg Jones, a fourth-grader, headed up the street to the split-level home his mom rents.
The door was locked, so Gregg went into the back yard. Neighbors said Gregg often went over to their house if he didn’t have a way in.
This time, it seems, Gregg went into his own fenced back yard where his family kept three pit bulls, a black 2-year-old male, a red 2-year-old female and the family’s black pit bull named, “Pepper.”
“Pepper” was licensed in June in Aurora. It was fixed, had all of its papers and had an identifying microchip embedded under his skin. The other two dogs weren’t licensed or fixed, and the female dog was in heat.
Inside the home, there were two pit bull puppies, a six-month-old female named “Princess” and an eight-month-old female pit bull-chow mix named “Attila.”
It was just after 3 o’clock when Latisha Millard, 22, laid down on her mother’s bed for a quick nap when she heard a boy yelling, “Ow. Get off me. Bad dog. Bad dog.”
She heard dogs growling and then she heard screams. Her 16-year-old brother, Jerome Millard, grabbed a wooden baseball bat and ran around the block, following the screams. He came upon a house with a 6-foot-tall wooden fence, and peered in. He saw a young boy who he had never seen in the neighborhood before being mauled by three dogs.
One had the boy’s arm, another had his leg and the third had the boy by the neck. They were tugging and pulling at the boy.
“They were dragging him around,” said Latisha Millard. “One dog just wouldn’t let go.”
Her brother called 9-1-1. In the background, the boy’s screams are clearly audible.
Jeff Witmer, 42, was in his home two doors down and heard what he thought was the normal after-school cadence of children playing. But then he heard Latisha Millard scream, “call 9-1-1.”
Witmer dashed out of his house and found Jerome Millard at the fence. He climbed up the fence to yell at the dogs.
Neighbors Mike Brushel, 45, and Angalique Martin, also heard the commotion and ran out of their houses. They grabbed tree branches that had been downed by a heavy snowstorm a few weeks before and began banging on the fence and yelling at the dogs.
Two of the pit bulls released their hold of Gregg and ran beneath a window sill. But Pepper continued gnawing on Gregg’s neck.
They slipped through the fence and into the back yard, continuing to yell and threaten the dog. Gregg’s eyes were wide open.
“He was scared to death,” said Brushel.
“He was pretty bad,” Millard said. “I think he was in shock. If he survives, God is with him. It’s sad. These dogs were his dogs and they attacked.”
When they got within 10 feet, the dog released the boy and ran into the corner of the yard. Martin ran to Gregg. Brushel asked him if he was OK. The boy slowly shook his head. Martin covered Gregg with a shirt, and the men and the teen-ager formed a circle around him to ward off any further attacks.
“All he had was some eye movement,” said Martin.
No one knows why the dogs attacked the little boy.
Within minutes, the fire department arrived. An ambulance took Gregg to an Aurora hospital, where he was airlifted to Children’s Hospital in Denver. He had severe bite wounds to his neck, arms and legs.
Gregg underwent emergency surgery and was still listed in critical condition on Thursday.
Students at his school on Thursday wrote Gregg and his family letters, according to an Aurora Public School spokeswoman. Counselors were at the school, and the principal sent home a letter to parents, telling them about the attack.
Neighbors of the Kingsborough neighborhood said they had complained to the city before about the dogs at the house.
“We used to hear them crying in the back yard, like someone was beating them,” said neighbor Laura Witmer.
The family was cited in 2003 for having more than three dogs at the residence – they had four – and for letting their dogs run wild.
City records show that between 2003-05 it had been quiet.
However, next-door neighbors Jeff and Kathy Anderson say the dogs have been a nuisance, breaking down their back yard fence and even once running into their house to chase their children.
Other neighbors say the dogs have been a neighborhood problem and they had been waiting in hopes that the Aurora City Council would pass a pit bull ban. The council did, on Oct. 24, banning all new pit bulls to the city and imposing strict new regulations on existing pit bulls. Owners would be required to get an annual $200 pit bull license, have at least $100,000 in insurance and an enclosed cage for the dogs when they are outside.
The new pit bull ordinance will begin being enforced in February. Owners have until the end of the year to get their dogs licensed and their homes safeguarded.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jeff Witmer. “And I hope I never do again,”
Staff writer Jeremy Meyer may be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
