Bite Victim Sues Stevens County Woman Says County Knew Neighbors’ Dogs Were Menace
Stevens County is being sued for alleged failure to provide dog control that might have prevented a vicious attack that seriously injured a Colville-area woman.
The victim, Patricia King, and her family seek unspecified damages from the county and neighbors Charles Hutson and DeLinda Jones, whose dogs attacked King last Feb. 17.
Mike McMahon, a Spokane attorney representing Stevens County, said he has found no evidence the county was warned the dogs posed a threat.
“The county expresses its sympathy to Mrs. King,” McMahon said, “but, based on her own report, there was no warning that the dogs would do this.”
The lawsuit was filed in Spokane County Superior Court because state law requires that suits against a county be filed in a nearby county.
According to the suit, Stevens County authorities were notified “over a period of several years” that Hutson and Jones kept “a vicious pack of dangerous dogs.” The county failed to act, King contends.
However, a sheriff’s deputy said King told him after the attack that she had never seen either of the dogs do anything more aggressive than bark at cars and chase them.
King, 39, said in the lawsuit that her right arm was mangled and permanently damaged when one of her neighbors’ dogs clamped onto her arm and wouldn’t let go.
She said another of Hutson’s and Jones’ dogs joined the attack, and she suffered puncture wounds on her back, legs and other parts of her body. Her injuries were so severe that Mount Carmel Hospital in Colville transferred her to Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane, where she later had skin grafts.
A Sheriff’s Department investigation indicates King went outside to feed her chickens about the time Hutson and Jones’ 13-year-old daughter, Barbaree, came to retrieve a dog, Keesha. The dog, described as an 80-to 100-pound Norwegian elkhound, bit King’s arm and wouldn’t let go even when King’s then-12-year-old daughter, Katy, beat it with a stick.
King’s 16-year-old son, Jake, broke the stock of a .22-caliber rifle over the dog’s neck, but it still wouldn’t let go, according to the Sheriff’s Department. He finally dislodged the dog by clubbing it with the rifle barrel.
The other dog that King and her daughter said joined the attack was described as a 40- to 50-pound mixed-breed Australian shepherd named Timmy. Timmy reportedly ran off while Keesha continued attacking.
When Keesha finally ran off, Jake King got another rifle and hunted the dog down and shot it, according to the Sheriff’s Department. He said the wounded dog ran after being shot, but the couple’s son, Jason, shot it again and killed it.
, DataTimes