State: No charges in dog attack

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Documents show multiple attempts to surrender dogs to county shelter

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  • A memorial to Pamela Rock sits in an Interlachen neighborhood where she was fatally attacked by dogs while she was delivering mail in August 2022. The memorial is still standing.
    A memorial to Pamela Rock sits in an Interlachen neighborhood where she was fatally attacked by dogs while she was delivering mail in August 2022. The memorial is still standing.
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A State Attorney’s Office investigation into the dog-attack death of a postal worker in Interlachen revealed the dogs’ owner made numerous attempts to get rid of them prior to the fatal attack.

After a public records request by the Palatka Daily News on Wednesday, the State Attorney’s Office in the 7th Judicial Circuit released a 101-page file detailing its investigation into 61-year-old Pamela Rock’s death. Rock died Aug. 22 from injuries sustained a day before when she was attacked by five dogs while on a postal route in Interlachen, according to the report.

In a November memorandum, the state officials summarized the investigation and stated they found “insufficient evidence” to prove the dogs’ owner “demonstrated a willful or wanton reckless disregard under the circumstances beyond and to the exclusion of a reasonable doubt.”

In the memo, State Attorney R.J. Larizza’s office states the dogs’ owner contacted Putnam County Animal Control multiple times prior to Rock’s death to get the shelter to take custody of his dogs.

When questioned about Animal Control and Rock’s death, Deputy County Administrator Julianne Young said in an email, “While we have the upmost (sic) respect for the decisions made by law enforcement, it is not appropriate for the county to make (a) comment at this time.”

 

First contact

On Oct. 20, 2022, Michael Harrell, an investigator for Larizza’s office, reported he contacted Animal Control Officer Kathy Tillman to follow up on the investigation after Rock’s death.

Documents show someone first contacted Animal Control on Sept. 15, 2021, about the dogs because they needed to be fed. Putnam County Jail records show the dogs’ owner was in jail at the time for a felony family offense. He was booked into the jail Sept. 14, 2021, and was not released until Oct. 5, 2021, which is why someone else had been tasked with feeding his dogs, documents state.

The person who contacted Animal Control said they tried to feed the dogs for the owner but they could not gain entry into his yard “because one of the dogs was too aggressive,” the State Attorney’s Office reported.

Animal Control Officer Donald Ferguson confirmed to the investigator that he fed the dogs in September after Animal Control received word of the difficulty feeding the canines.

“Ferguson said at this time the dogs were inside their fence, where they are naturally protective, so no action was taken other then (sic) feeding them over the fence,” Harrell reported. “Ferguson did tell me that (the dogs’ owner) did make an effort to contain his dogs inside the fence by using large stones where there were open holes in the fence.”

 

Dog attack, February 2022

Animal Control call records show the dogs’ owner reached out to the county agency Feb. 4, 2022, saying he needed to surrender “a few dogs” because he could no longer care for them. Tillman logged the call Feb. 7, 2022.

When investigators questioned her about the call, she reportedly said the call had been left as a message on the agency’s answering machine.

“Tillman stated due to a lack of resources the call was never returned and no one spoke with Edgar,” Harrell reported.

On Feb. 15, 2022, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office received a call from an Interlachen man who reported the dogs attacked him. The victim told Harrell he had been walking just outside of the property when one dog got out of the fence and began attacking him. Other dogs from the same property also got free and began attacking, the victim told Harrell.

The victim also stated he had to be taken to HCA Florida Orange Park Hospital due to the severity of his injuries, Harrell stated, and the victim still had scars from the attack by Oct. 21, 2022.

Deputies advised the owner to quarantine his dogs for 10 days following the attack and said Animal Control would contact him, according to the sheriff’s office report. The responding deputy stated he forwarded the report to Animal Control.

However, Animal Control officers told Harrell they had not been contacted and never received the report.

Allison Waters-Merritt, the spokeswoman for the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, said the agency faxed Animal Control the report. She said faxing records was the agency’s method to distribute reports to numerous agencies. Now, the sheriff’s office emails its reports and other vital information.

While the agency had been looking to streamline the process for a while, Waters-Merritt said, this case had an effect on how the agency sent reports. The new method of sending reports gives the sheriff’s office a hard record of if and when reports were filed to other agencies, she added.

 

Another dog attack, early August 2022

On Aug. 10, 2022, a woman filed a complaint with the sheriff’s office, which Animal Control later logged, that the same dogs attacked her vehicle, reports show. No one was hurt in that attack, Harrell relayed in his investigation.

Animal Control reportedly followed up with the owner the next day and saw he had made efforts to fortify his fence to keep the dogs from escaping. During this time, the owner again tried again to surrender his dogs to Animal Control but the request was denied, the state wrote in the memo.

“At no time were (his) dogs classified, nor was there any attempt to classify any of them, as dangerous dogs under Florida law by Putnam County Animal Control,” stated Mark Lewis, managing assistant state attorney for Putnam County.

When questioned about the owner’s request to surrender the dogs, Ferguson told Harrell that Animal Control will not accept surrenders unless there is a “dire” need. Ferguson also said he had no knowledge of the Feb. 15, 2022, incident when the owner made his second request and had no knowledge of the dogs being vicious toward anyone.

On Wednesday, Putnam County officials refused to respond to numerous questions from the Daily News, including how the county classifies an intake situation as “dire.”

However, the agency’s standard operating procedures detail an intake procedure.

Animal Control is reportedly an “open admission” shelter that takes animals from only Putnam residents. While the guidelines, last updated in November 2020, state the shelter can accept owner surrenders, the county’s website states the agency cannot.

These procedures also detail how an Animal Control officer should handle dangerous dog allegations. Steps include interviewing the person who made the allegation, the owner and witnesses, the guidelines state.

 

Postal worker attack, Aug. 21, 2022

Rock, a Melrose resident and U.S. Postal Service worker, died at age 61 on Aug. 22 from injuries sustained while working her route in Interlachen the previous day, multiple reports show.

Rock’s vehicle broke down Aug. 21 while delivering mail, the District 8 Medical Examiner’s Office narrative states.

Rock reportedly called her supervisor to explain the situation, going to look at a nearby mailbox to give her supervisor her location, the examiner’s office states, but she was then attacked by five dogs.

Documented 911 calls recorded witnesses calling law enforcement for help and someone trying to shoot the dogs off of Rock, but feared they would hit her or the dogs’ owner. A sheriff’s office detective went to the scene to interview the owner, who said he started running outside as soon as his dogs ran out of the house.

The owner, per the interview, said he was doing everything he could to get the dogs off Rock but he could not shoot them because he does not have a gun. He reportedly told the detective he cannot own weapons because he has a felony.

“I swear I did everything I could,” the owner told investigators.

Emergency responders first took Rock to HCA Florida Putnam Hospital in Palatka to be stabilized and then airlifted to UF Health in Gainesville, the Medical Examiner’s Office said.

Rock’s family was contacted and she was placed on “comfort care measures” due to the extent of her injuries, documents state, and she died at 7:15 p.m. Aug. 22.

The dogs have since been euthanized and a memorial to Rock still sits in Interlachen near where she was attacked.

 

The aftermath

Overcrowding at Animal Control has been an ongoing issue for numerous years, dating back to at least 2016, Daily News reports show.

The county is in the process of designing a larger facility to replace the one that sits on county land in Palatka. In November, county officials heard from companies willing to complete the proposed Animal Control facility.

In an email Wednesday, the Daily News asked county administrators several questions, including:

– how the county plans to combat overcrowding issues

– if officials felt the current lack of accommodations led to the attack that killed Rock

– how often Animal Control receives calls about surrendering dogs

– what makes a situation “dire” enough for an animal to be taken into custody by the county shelter

“You have asked multiple complex questions that depend on specific circumstances,” Young said in an email. “Therefore, I cannot give you answers related to hypothetical questions.”

The Daily News’ attempts to reach Animal Control for comment on this story were unsuccessful. Animal Control’s operating procedures state its officers are to not answer questions.

“It is not your duty to give any information regarding Putnam County Animal Control,” the guidelines state. “Should you be approached for an interview, refer the party to the Putnam County Public Information Officer. Employees are authorized to provide basic information as to what their role is at the scene of an investigation.”

The county does not have an official public information officer.