Dog Mauling Case Goes Back to City

In what may be considered a dog-day victory for the man-biting dog that was banned from the city of El Segundo in January after mauling a resident, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Thursday sent the case back to the city and ordered officials to clarify their reasons why the canine should not be returned to the community.

City officials plan to hold a hearing next month on the future of Captain Sinbad, an Alaskan malamute that mauled a resident after escaping from its owners’ home in January. Michael Rotsten, attorney for dog owner Melinie Prosk, said he plans to submit a proposal at the hearing that would provide safeguards for the community, but allow Prosk to bring home her dog, which has been quarantined at a kennel since the attack.

Captain Sinbad was exiled from the community after the dog viciously bit resident John McCarty. Under a city ordinance, the city could have sentenced the 95-pound dog to death but city officials decided that Sinbad could remain alive so long as it was castrated and sent to an animal psychiatrist to be retrained. If a psychiatrist could guarantee that it would never bite again, the city would allow the dog to be released to a rural area.

Prosk filed a lawsuit with Los Angeles Superior Court on Feb. 16 objecting to the city’s guidelines and the process they used to declare the dog vicious.

“The demands were completely unfair,” Rotsten said. “No animal trainer is going to guarantee that a dog will never bite again and . . . releasing it to a rural area means that my client would have to move.”

City officials remain concerned that the dog may bite someone else. Assistant City Atty. Mark Hensley said the dog was not on a leash and schoolchildren were nearby when the incident occurred. Furthermore, Prosk lives next to a day care center and middle school.

McCarty discovered the dog wandering in his neighbor’s yard, eight blocks from its home, and was trying to read the dog’s tags when Sinbad attacked him. The dog bit McCarty’s wrists and knocked him over. The dog was aiming for McCarty’s throat when contractor Jamie Grant kicked the dog off him.

McCarty, 62, says he’s still recovering from the wounds he sustained during the attack and plans to file civil action against Sinbad’s owners. He has refused to participate in the legal process of removing the dog from the city because he disagrees with the way the city has handled the case.

“They should put the dog down because it’s going to kill someone else or return it to its owner with all kinds of safeguards,” McCarty said. “Instead, the council ordered the dog castrated, which does nothing for hostile behavior, and banished it to a rural area. It’s reprehensible. If the dog ends up killing some little girl out there I don’t want anything to do with it.”