Lakewood – When Sonya Dias’ pit bull, Gryffindor, pounced on 11-year-old Dorian Gonzales on Monday, licking his lips, Dorian loved it.
Dorian immediately sided with Dias and a gaggle of lawyers gathered in O’Kane Park to announce they are challenging Denver’s pit bull ban.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of three dog owners contends Denver animal control officers’ confiscation of pit bulls is unconstitutional – allegedly forcing owners to sign confessions in order to save their seized dogs’ lives.
“What if it was people?” Dorian said. “What if someone said Mexican people aren’t allowed to be here?”
A growing number of national advocacy groups see it that way too. They object strongly to the breed-specific pit bull bans in Denver, Aurora and other cities around the country.
“Your No. 1 dog biters of children actually are cocker spaniels,” American Canine Association president Bob Yarnall said. “You can’t be prejudiced against a breed of dog.”
The lawsuit targets a Denver ban enacted in 1989 after pit bull attacks killed a boy and severely injured a pastor. The ban lets animal control officers round up any dog with “a majority of physical traits” of a pit bull.
Dog misbehavior “is not a bad-dog problem. It’s a bad- owner problem,” attorney David Lane said.
Today “you can train a (non-pit bull) dog in Denver to rip someone’s throat out. Fluffy the pit bull, however, is illegal. That’s irrational,” Lane said.
He and other attorneys seek class-action status and a redefinition of human-animal relations. Because Denver’s law treats dogs as “mere property,” city officials “have the police power to be able to regulate what they deem dangerous,” attorney Jennifer Thomaidis said. But if courts recognize pets as members of a family, animal control seizures “would be like coming in and taking away somebody’s child,” she said.
The lawsuit names Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and city animal control officials.
City officials hadn’t yet seen the suit, deputy city attorney Sam Dykstra said.
Inside Denver’s animal shelter, field staff manager Juan Zalasar acknowledged that Denver has killed more than 1,000 pit bulls under the law, including more than 30 on a single occasion last year when a previously ticketed breeder was caught with a truckload.
When pit bulls are seized, owners are given a chance to move them out of Denver, with microchips implanted under pit bulls’ neck skin to identify them, he said.
“Since we’ve had the ban, I haven’t been privy to another death of a child,” Zalasar said.
Denver’s ban withstood legal challenges twice before – in 1989, when the state Supreme Court affirmed it, and in 2005, when a judge upheld the city’s challenge of a state law that would have squelched Denver’s “home rule” authority.
But “the real problem is people,” said American Kennel Club spokeswoman Daisy Okas, “who are training the dogs for purposes other than being household pets.”
