Earlier in the year we watched the documentary about Diane Whipple who was mauled by her neighbors Marjorie Noel and Robert Knollers dogs while unlocking her apartment door. One owner being charged with Manslaughter and the other Second degree murder. During this whole trial i was surprised by the fact that one of the owners Marjorie never once apologized to Diane's family, she instead blamed the victim for her own death. The owners claimed to have not known that the dogs were vicious or a threat to neighbors, but many stories of the dogs behavior towards neighbors surfaced after the victim was killed. But why not report them or talk to the owners before if they were seen as a threat to others safety?. The whole incident could have been prevented if someone would have spoken up about what they had experienced.
So I agree with the essence of the post but would try to give a different view on the neighbors side. In many of these animal cases the animal has a certain number of tallies essentially or strikes that they can hit before some repercussion is taken. Such as in this case the dogs being put down.
ReplyDeleteThis is true. If the people really felt threatened they should have said something. However, maybe they just saw the dog as intimidating, and when they saw that the owners had such a lack of empathy, they decided to testify against them.
ReplyDeleteI agree – the SF Dog Mauling is a solid example of a case that was only pushed into trial due to public opinion. Marjorie and her husband could have easily avoided this entire fiasco if they had simply shown some sympathy and apologized for the tragic death of their neighbor, Diane Whipple.
ReplyDeleteI think that the attack could have been prevented as well. There was also no sympathy that was shown from both Robert and Marjorie which would have put the whole situation at ease especially if they hadn't blamed Diane for being there at the "wrong time"
ReplyDeleteI agree but people could have possibly felt threatened by the dogs and the owners so they didn't report them.
ReplyDeleteI agree that people should have reported the dogs violent tendencies. I think it is ridiculous that they tried to blame the victim, and I'm glad it damaged their image in the media.
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