Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

An in­trud­er got more than he bar­gained for ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing when he was mauled by a dog af­ter a Pleas­antville fa­ther al­leged­ly caught him peep­ing through his teenage son’s bed­room win­dow.

The in­trud­er was al­so over­pow­ered and ap­pre­hend­ed by the home­own­er be­fore be­ing bit­ten by the fam­i­ly’s three-year-old mixed-breed dog, Spike. Po­lice said the man was treat­ed and dis­charged from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal last evening. He was not ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day at his home on Cir­cu­lar Road, Kirk Pe­gus cred­it­ed his pet dog for alert­ing him that some­thing was amiss. He re­called that around 5 am, Spike be­gan bark­ing and growl­ing in the yard.

Pe­gus said he im­me­di­ate­ly knew some­thing was wrong. He looked through a win­dow and saw a shad­ow near his son’s bed­room. “I gone and take up my cut­lass and sneak out through the front and gone through the back, and I meet a man peep­ing through my son bed­room, so I at­tacked him.”

He said he al­so shout­ed to his son to call the po­lice. When the in­trud­er fell to the ground, he said his dog be­gan at­tack­ing him. Pe­gus said he tied his hands with a rope and wait­ed for the po­lice.

A video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia showed the in­trud­er ly­ing on the ground, bleed­ing, and cry­ing out, “Je­sus,” while the dog was at­tack­ing him. He was al­so pray­ing as he lay on the ground. Neigh­bours heard the com­mo­tion and came to Pe­gus’ as­sis­tance.

Pe­gus in­sist­ed that he was just de­fend­ing his prop­er­ty. He said the in­trud­er suf­fered sev­er­al in­juries.

“He get some dog bites to his body. He got an in­jury to his face be­cause I hit him a big stone to his head. My blade was dull, so it couldn’t re­al­ly do dam­age.”

While the man claimed he en­tered the yard be­cause he was be­ing chased by some­one, Pe­gus claimed he came to steal, say­ing the in­trud­er was wear­ing a pair of his pants, which were on his clothes­line. “He look like he is a pet­ty thief. The blue pants that he had on at the time was a pants that I had on the line. He had a bag with some of the clothes in it.” Pe­gus said he had nev­er seen the man be­fore, who claimed to re­side in Gas­par­il­lo.

Pe­gus said the in­ci­dent high­light­ed the val­ue of a guard dog, as with­out Spike, things might have turned out dif­fer­ent­ly. He re­called that Spike had once saved his life af­ter a wall col­lapsed dur­ing the con­struc­tion of his home by alert­ing neigh­bours that he was in dan­ger. Pe­gus echoed Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s ad­vice to home­own­ers dur­ing a stand-your-ground con­sul­ta­tion last year, that dogs could serve as a first line of de­fence.

“Home­own­ers need to have se­cu­ri­ty de­tail in their yard, a dog, a cut­lass, what­so­ev­er, to de­fend your­self be­cause the rate this coun­try go­ing now peo­ple in­vad­ing your house. Try and get a bad dog for your yard.”

Pe­gus, how­ev­er, lament­ed that it took the po­lice more than half an hour to re­spond and said that, with sev­er­al home break-ins re­port­ed, his com­mu­ni­ty needs a stronger po­lice pres­ence. Of­fi­cers from the Mon Re­pos Po­lice Sta­tion are in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

‘It’s up to the DPP’

De­spite the re­cent­ly passed Home In­va­sion Bill 2025, com­mon­ly called the stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion, the Pleas­antville home­own­er is not au­to­mat­i­cal­ly ab­solved from fac­ing con­se­quences. Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dar­ius Figueira said the ini­tial de­tails re­gard­ing the in­ci­dent sug­gest that the lev­el of vi­o­lence against the in­trud­er does not match that ex­hib­it­ed by him.

“Some­body break­ing and en­ter­ing your home is one thing, but some­body in your yard is a whole dif­fer­ent sto­ry un­der ju­di­cial in­ter­pre­ta­tion. The way the stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion has been in­ter­pret­ed in T&T in the act is not what ob­tains in Amer­i­ca. In Amer­i­ca, you have the right to come out­side and blow him away with your gun. But the way the act has been in­ter­pret­ed in the law in Trinidad, it is not in keep­ing with the stand-your-ground in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.” He said the de­ci­sion would ul­ti­mate­ly rest with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to de­cide who would be charged. “It comes down to the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate and the DPP to de­ter­mine what he is go­ing to do in such a sit­u­a­tion,” he said.

At­tor­ney-at-law Michael Rooplal, who prac­tices both civ­il and crim­i­nal law, said at first glance the in­ci­dent falls with­in the Home In­va­sion leg­is­la­tion. He agreed, how­ev­er, that for it to ap­ply, there must be rea­son­able force, which has to be pro­por­tion­ate to the per­ceived threat.

“In gen­er­al, based on the cir­cum­stances, the po­lice would have to make a judge­ment call based on what­ev­er facts and ev­i­dence they have, whether in all the cir­cum­stances the acts of the home­own­er were rea­son­able and whether it was pro­por­tion­ate,” he said.