A married Texas couple were criminally charged after their animals killed an 81-year-old man and injured three other people.
Investigators believe the couple had trained their dogs to be aggressive prior to the fatal attack.
Christian Alexander Moreno and Abilene Schnieder of San Antonio, were both arrested after the Feb. 24 fatal mauling of Air Force Veteran Ramon Najera Jr.
Moreno and Schnieder, both 31, face felony charges of a dangerous dog attack causing death and criminal neglect causing the injury of an elderly person after two of their dogs escaped from their yard and unleashed fury. The couple remained jailed Friday on $125,000 bond each, a San Antonio Police sergeant said.
Najera was killed and his 74-year-old wife and two other people were injured in the attack, police reported.
The ambush came after weeks of increasingly violent behavior by the dogs and investigators believe the couple were encouraging the behavior through training, an arrest affidavit shows.
Police received multiple tips the couple had “been breeding the dogs and training the dogs to be aggressive with meat,” the affidavit reads.
According to the affidavit, Moreno told investigators he had complied with the city’s Animal Control Services (ACS) guidelines to keep the animals leashed, but a witness video showed the dogs were not wearing collars.
“First and foremost, the most important part is to the family. To say we are sorry. It was heartbreaking to see the whole incident go down,” Schnieder told local News 4 before her arrest Wednesday.
She said she and her husband never planned to hurt anyone and that “we didn’t raise our dogs to be mean.”
ACS spokesperson Lisa Norwood told USA TODAY the dogs, American Staffordshire terriers, and were euthanized.
‘He was trying to shield her’
Najera and his wife were at their home west of downtown San Antonio when the two dogs escaped their fenced-in yard about 2 p.m., as Najera and his wife were making their way to their vehicle, authorities said.
“The dogs went after both of them, but he was trying to shield her as they walked to their car,” San Antonio Fire Department Chief Charles Hood told USA TODAY Friday.
The dogs latched onto Najera and dragged him along the street before they were chased away by San Antonio firefighters wielding pick axes.
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Najera’s wife was seriously injured, Hood said, and a bystander who struck the animals with a rake was bitten on the hand. A responding fire captain was also bitten in the lower leg, Hood said.
Rabies tests on the dogs came back negative and everyone who was taken to a hospital had been treated and released, he said.
The dogs, King and Snow, were euthanized by ACS later that night, Norwood said. A third, named Legend, was put down the next day after the animal was found roaming the street,
“There was not confirmation that animal was involved in the attack, but the owners surrendered the dogs legally so the decision was made they would all be euthanized,” Norwood said.
Increasingly violent behavior
“It was reported by bystanders on scene that they (neighbors) had had issues with the dogs previously,” Hood said Friday
Schnieder told police she’s been afraid of the dogs since they were sterilized, court records show. The move, she said, made the animals more aggressive, and Schnieder told police they began fighting each other in the family’s yard.
Schnieder said she began recording “conversations with her husband regarding how dangerous the dogs had become,” but investigators said the couple continued to keep the canines in the unsecured yard without chains or other tethers.
Schnieder also told police she asked Moreno to return the dogs to ACS “for everyone’s safety.”
Moreno, arrested on Feb. 24, is due in court March 28 for a preliminary hearing on the charges. His wife is due in court on April 4, police said.
Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.