DETROIT (WXYZ) — The search continues for one of two dogs that attacked children as they play outside their school during recess.
7 Action News was first on the scene after it happened yesterday afternoon at Bates Academy on Wyoming in Detroit. Detroit Public Schools Community District tells 7 Action News the dogs bit two children, who had to be rushed to the hospital.
Detroit Public Schools Community District officials say it happened around one in the afternoon during recess as three adults supervised at Bates Academy, an elementary- middle school. As students rushed to get back into the school, the dogs got into the building.
“We got a phone call that he was locked in a room because there were dogs running loose in the schools,” described Melvin McClain, the dad of a student at the school. “Two of his classmates were attacked. He was just terrified.”
Detroit Animal Control captured one of the dogs. It is in ten-day quarantine to be evaluated for rabies. It was a stray, with no tags or chips to identify an owner.
“I heard they confiscated one. Where is the other dog?” Said McClain.
“We are going to follow all leads until we find the dog,” said Carl McClanahan, Field Operations Manager of the Detroit Animal Control, regarding the second dog.
McClanahan says Animal Control Officers had a ten-minute response time after getting a call about the incidents at Bates, which seems to be an isolated incident. The last call they got for a stray at Bates was about a month ago. It was a different dog that was picked up, evaluated, and adopted out to a forever home in Wyandotte.
Anyone who sees a stray is asked to call 313-922 DOGS, the Animal Control Hotline.
The hot line receives up to 6,000 calls per month for sixteen animal control officers to respond to. McClanahan says the officers are also parents and this horrifying attack on the playground reminds them why their work is important.
“The parental instinct kicks in and everybody wants to find this animal because they know how they would feel if that was their child,” said McClanahan.
The Detroit Public Schools Community District says the girls were treated for bite wounds and released from the hospital.
“I am praying for those two that were attacked and hopefully they are okay. I just don’t want this to happen to anyone else’s child,” said McClain.
The Detroit Public Schools Community District says the girls were treated for bite wounds and released from the hospital.
