California officials said 13 pit bulls were euthanized after a dog breeder was reportedly mauled to death at his Compton home.
News helicopter footage had to blur out the gruesome scene from the man’s backyard on Friday morning.
The breeder was later identified as 35-year-old Dominic Cooper. His body was found by his girlfriend, who immediately called police.
The Compton Fire Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department responded, but news video showed them struggling to avoid the dogs in order to safely enter into the backyard.
Police said Cooper was feeding his the dogs, who were all housed in a single kennel, when they began to fight and then mauled the man on Thursday evening at about 8 p.m. The attack was caught on surveillance video, said Michael Gomez of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau.
Helicopter footage showed the man’s girlfriend struggling to stay atop of their chain-link fence in order to keep away from the dogs.
The father of the breeder cooperated with police and signed over the dogs, eight of which were puppies.
On Tuesday, the county said that the dogs had been euthanized after they were examined by a veterinarian.
“All dogs were euthanized due to evidence linking them to the attack,” said a county animal control spokesman. “Given the potential threat they posed to the community, this action was deemed necessary.”
A friend of Cooper’s said that he was trying to raise money by breeding dogs. She also claimed that Cooper wasn’t mauled but that a dog bit through an artery and the man bled out.
A GoFundMe donation account was created by Cooper’s parents to raise money for the three daughters he left behind and raised a little more than $2k of a $20k goal.
Here’s a report on the incident:
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