BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – A household is asking for solutions after a girl in Ensley was killed in a suspected canine attack.
According to the Jefferson County Coroner, 63-year-old Sharon Portis was discovered mendacity on the bottom final Thursday morning on 18th St. Ensley after she was killed in a canine attack. Birmingham police say there isn’t a menace to the general public after the incident.
Portis’s household says she was leaving for work when she was attacked. They added that she didn’t reside distant and that the attack occurred possibly 100 yards away. Family members say they’ve unanswered questions.
“I don’t see her walking into an area there that she was well familiar with and knowing what was lurking behind the bushes, in the darkness,” mentioned Albert Ford, Portis’s brother. “She’s walking, or biking, or whatever the route she normally takes, and she’s attacked by dogs.”
Birmingham police are investigating the incident, however Ford says he hasn’t heard from them.
“No one from that agency has contacted any of her family. She has a mother, she has an 88-year-old mother, no one has contacted her mother or any of her family,” mentioned Ford.
He added that though police say there may be not a menace to the general public proper now, they don’t point out if the canine or dogs have been caught but.
“The normal reaction for a dog, when they sense and smell blood or hear or sense other dogs, they go off. They bark, they howl, the do all sorts of things because they’re sensing what’s going on so why would those people in that home not have heard something. Somebody should have heard something,” mentioned Ford.
Neighbors within the space famous that it’s not unusual to see dogs out and about on this neighborhood.
Eric Johnson, who lives within the space, mentioned he’s recognized Portis for years.
“She’d ride her bicycle past here every day,” mentioned Johnson. “You see little loose dogs, but I never expected that.”
If you get shut you understand they’ll begin barking and stuff. Like one time, I’ve a cat, and my cat is exterior typically and it’s loads of occasions, they’ve tried to attack my cat.”, mentioned one lady who didn’t need to be recognized.
WBRC FOX6 News reached out to the Greater Birmingham Humane Society, who say they’re all the time open to working with municipalities on addressing stray animal populations within the following assertion:
“We were very sad to hear about the death of Ms. Portis. GBHS agrees that these incidents make our communities less safe and negatively impact participation in outdoor recreational use – – along with a host of other undesired outcomes.
We have attempted multiple times to address the issue with the City of Birmingham (and those neighborhoods within it) as well as the City of Bessemer. Each of these cities has their own separate Animal Control Division outside of GBHS Animal Care and Control, which means all calls from citizens are patched through to their dispatch and are triaged by their employees.
Sheriff Pettway of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department has a department solely committed to animal investigation and response. This has been enormously helpful with managing problems in the unincorporated Jefferson County jurisdiction.
GBHS has offered to pay for spay/neuters for the public, we have offered to have our officers enforce the tethering act (using that section of the Alabama Code that allows this), we have offered to manage licensing, but we cannot get traction on these offers of assistance.
GBHS does track data and we know why the issue of stray dogs, especially fractious stray dogs, is a problem and why these incidents are increasing. The question is whether municipalities within our county are willing to change current policies in order to address the problem?
We are open to meeting with anyone to share data, best practices, and policies that can decrease attacks, and unwanted dog/cat births, etc.
I can definitively tell you that the issue is not being caused by a large group of irresponsible pet owners located throughout the community. These animals (primarily dogs) come from hot spots, where there are illegal breeding operations that are in plain sight and are ignored. They are also caused by a few pet owners who refuse to safely and properly contain their unaltered dogs. Most pet owners do not allow their pets to run free unaltered, and most canine owners do not tie or chain their pets for a majority of a 24-hour period.”
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