Kevon Felmine

Four pit bulls mauled a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer to death at Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas, ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.Denise Rack­al, 46, met her death short­ly af­ter 6 am on her way to work at an Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion site at Ed­in­burgh 500 South.Rack­al, an em­ploy­ee of Per­son­al Safe­ty and Se­cu­ri­ty Train­ing Lim­it­ed (PSSTL), was walk­ing through Flam­boy­ant Cres­cent, Ed­in­burgh 500, when she was at­tacked.The dogs, be­long­ing to po­lice­man Daryl la Pierre, pounced on her af­ter run­ning out of an open gate. Their blood­ied paw marks were all over the road.At the La Pierre res­i­dence, a white pit bull stood at the gate with blood­ied hand prints on his face, just af­ter the own­er man­aged to se­cure them. The dogs rest­ed in­side the house as res­i­dents vent­ed their anger.

At the scene, Rack­al's hus­band, Li­onel, was in­con­solable. He was al­so out­raged by the treat­ment he re­ceived.Claim­ing he was treat­ed like a crim­i­nal, Li­onel stood on the road­way as he di­rect­ed his anger to­wards the dog own­er, seat­ed in a heav­i­ly-tint­ed po­lice ve­hi­cle."This is my wife who died and the you treat­ing me like a ban­dit. I have to get jus­tice," he de­mand­ed.In an in­ter­view, Li­onel re­called the last mo­ments with his wife."Yes­ter­day was Moth­ers' Day. I cooked for her. We cud­dled and slept. She told me last night she was out of mon­ey so she was not go­ing to work but I gave her mon­ey.

"Now this morn­ing, one of her co-work­ers called me and told me my wife got at­tacked by a pit bull. I came im­me­di­ate­ly, on­ly to dis­cov­er my wife's life­less body cov­ered un­der a sheet."When he went to speak with the dog own­er he said he was treat­ed like a pris­on­er and got no apol­o­gy. He said he in­tend­ed to take le­gal ac­tion.De­scrib­ing his wife as lov­ing and help­ful, he said she was a gen­uine woman who loved to work.Their son, Chad, at­tends the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in St Au­gus­tine, while daugh­ter, Van­na, does not live at home. Denise was mar­ried to Li­onel for 23 years

La Pierre, at­tached to the North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, was at work when the maul­ing oc­curred. He ar­rived at the scene in a po­lice ve­hi­cle where he re­mained seat­ed as res­i­dents vent­ed their anger.An of­fi­cer, who did not want to dis­close his name, spoke on be­half of La Pierre, say­ing he wished to con­vey his con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly.He said La Pierre al­so ex­pressed his re­morse for what had hap­pened. He added that La Pierre was "shak­en up by the or­deal" and could not speak at the mo­ment.How­ev­er, out­raged res­i­dents said the dogs ran out af­ter Rack­al had passed the of­fi­cer's prop­er­ty and jumped on her.

A res­i­dent said it was the sixth time the dogs had at­tacked res­i­dents in the area. The dogs al­so killed sev­en dogs last year, they claimed.They are call­ing for jus­tice and want the dogs put to death. They al­so de­mand­ed the own­er apol­o­gise to Denise's the fam­i­ly and of­fer as much as­sis­tance as pos­si­ble.They claim dogs were be­ing bred for sale and there were ap­prox­i­mate­ly 30 pit bulls, in­clud­ing pup­pies.They said they had no prob­lem with the man rear­ing dogs, but they should be prop­er­ly se­cured."There are no ken­nels and prop­er fa­cil­i­ties for breed­ing," they com­plained.

An au­top­sy on Rack­al body is ex­pect­ed to be per­formed to­day at the Foren­sic Sci­ences Com­plex, St James, and the fam­i­ly is ex­pect­ed to meet with se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials.Rack­al's killing fol­lows sev­er­al re­cent dog at­tacks. One month ago, four-year-old Ezekiel Renne Cam­bridge was al­most killed by two dogs near his Block Five, Palmiste, home.Last month a lime thief was man­gled to death by two Rot­tweil­ers in San Juan while a 13-year-old To­ba­go girl was mauled by a pit bull while on her way home af­ter school.Fol­low­ing Renne-Cam­bridge's at­tack, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan had promised to re­view the Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act.