KALI­FA CLYNE

In sev­er­al parts of Ed­in­burgh 500 as many as four dan­ger­ous dogs can be seen in one home ly­ing in de­cep­tive calm be­hind low walls. These dogs be­long to res­i­dents who have moved in­to the new Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) de­vel­op­ments in Ed­in­burgh South and in fact through­out the Ed­in­burgh 500 com­mu­ni­ty. In a vis­it to the area, res­i­dents said that they had been plagued with van­dal­ism and so many had been forced to ob­tain the dogs in an ef­fort to se­cure their prop­er­ty. The neigh­bour­hood has seen tremen­dous ex­pan­sion over the past few years and ac­cord­ing to se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers has at­tract­ed van­dals and ban­dits.

Even se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers guard­ing the com­mu­ni­ty were in pos­ses­sion of a large pit bull se­cured by a sin­gle chain near the booth where they worked. Of­fi­cers even of­fered to demon­strate the mild tem­pera­ment of the bound an­i­mal while say­ing the dog's pur­pose was to aid in se­cur­ing the premis­es from van­dals and ban­dits. How­ev­er, of­fi­cers en­sured that their dogs were trained both ag­gres­sive­ly and so­cial­ly.

On Mon­day se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer Denise Rack­al, 46, was trag­i­cal­ly mauled to death by four vi­cious pit bulls at Flam­boy­ant Cres­cent, Ed­in­burgh 500. The pit bulls es­caped from the home of a po­lice of­fi­cer. They have since been put to death. Al­though res­i­dents say that the or­deal has left them shak­en, many have still cho­sen to re­tain own­er­ship of the dan­ger­ous an­i­mals.

Ja­son Mar­cano, ed­i­tor of the com­mu­ni­ty's month­ly newslet­ter, said it was im­por­tant not to just look at the dogs as dan­ger­ous an­i­mals but to look at the rea­sons why peo­ple choose to have them. Many res­i­dents see the dogs as pro­tec­tion in a com­mu­ni­ty with a grad­u­al­ly in­creas­ing crime rate. Mar­cano said a great per­cent­age of home­own­ers in the Ed­in­burgh 500 com­mu­ni­ty had owned dogs and specif­i­cal­ly pit bulls for years, yet an in­ci­dent as dev­as­tat­ing as the death of Rack­al had not oc­curred. He be­lieved, like many oth­er res­i­dents that it was nec­es­sary to hold the own­ers of dan­ger­ous dogs re­spon­si­ble for the dogs' ac­tions. He said it was clear peo­ple need­ed to pro­tect their homes but laws need­ed to be en­forced for mon­i­tor­ing of the own­ers of these dogs.

"There should be a qual­i­fi­ca­tion process as it is clear that these an­i­mals are weapons," said Mon­tano.

Though there is not a process that keeps cit­i­zens from ob­tain­ing these "weapons", the HDC con­tracts re­ceived by home­own­ers stip­u­late that pets are not al­lowed on prop­er­ties. One fe­male res­i­dent of Flam­boy­ant Cres­cent said there were times when the pit bulls and even some Rot­tweil­ers ran freely in the road. "These peo­ple don't lis­ten at all, there are so many pit bulls on this street and in the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty," she said. She point­ed to a near­by house owned by a po­lice of­fi­cer, where as many as four dan­ger­ous dogs could be seen in the yard.

Her sen­ti­ments mir­rored that of many oth­er res­i­dents who said they felt trau­ma­tised by what had hap­pened to Rack­al. Sher­win Samuel, a fa­ther of two said he felt a tremen­dous de­gree of anx­i­ety when he sent his two chil­dren to school. "I keep think­ing about what hap­pened to that woman and pray­ing that it won't hap­pen to my kids as there are a lot of those types of (dan­ger­ous) dogs around here," Samuel said.