Arrested for Puppy’s Death, Man Says He Was Protecting His Daughter

Violet Malo’s 13-week-old puppy Sissy ran home and died on the front porch.

She was killed by a blow to her side, a veterinarian says. James Bennett admits he hit the dog with a rock the size of a brick.

A Cannon Beach municipal court judge may have to decide whether Bennett was justified.

Bennett says he was trying to protect his daughter from two marauding dogs.

But that Sunday, July 13, Cannon Beach police officer Michelle Reed felt otherwise. She helped Sissy’s owner bury the dog, and charged Bennett with Class A misdemeanor animal abuse. City Attorney Chris Hooley has proposed dropping the criminal charge down to a civil violation, similar to a traffic ticket.

Police Chief David Rouse backs up his officer’s decision to arrest.

“The fact that he comes on the scene and thinks his child has been attacked does not give him carte blanche to attack or kill a dog or a person, if a person were there,” he said. “In this case, a dog has the same rights a person does--a legal right to be free from being attacked or injured.”

Rouse wants to know if the girl really was in danger, or if Bennett acted recklessly.

Bennett tells it this way:

He and his family were walking from his parents’ cabin to the beach early that afternoon. It was the end of a weekend reprieve from Portland, where Bennett, 36, works at Timberline Software Corp. as a database administrator.

The Bennetts’ 7-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son were in the lead. Bennett walked with one of the twins, 5-year-old Elysse. His wife trailed behind with the other twin, Cecilia.

He heard his wife screaming from the other side of a hill, “Cecilia’s being attacked by dogs!”

He told Elysse to stay put and ran back up the hill, grabbing a rock along the way.

When he got to the top, he said, he saw his daughter lying in the street with two big dogs 1 1/2 to 2 feet away, walking around her.

His wife stood by screaming. Cecelia cried. He didn’t notice if the dogs were growling.

Bennett threw the rock, hitting one dog. The animals ran off.

Malo says she had been sitting on the front porch with the dogs, a Labrador-border collie-Rottweiler mix, when the sound of children laughing sprinkled over the hill and the dogs took off.

“I thought, ‘Those little dickens went up there to find those kids,’ ” Malo said.

But then she heard a woman screaming. So the 72-year-old woman pulled herself up the hill using a rope railing. Halfway up, she called to her dogs. They came running, screaming and yipping. They seemed hurt.

Then Bennett appeared at the crest of the hill.

At the time, Malo didn’t know this was the boy who had spent summers at the Bennetts’ beach cottage for 30 years, the son of a couple she considered friends. Likewise, Bennett didn’t recognize Vi Malo, a woman he remembered as kind.

Bennett yelled down that Malo must keep her dogs tied up, that they had just attacked his child. She responded that the dogs were just puppies and wanted to play.

Bennett says he saw red welts and scratches on his daughter’s shoulders, arms, legs and neck. Some of the scratches had drawn blood. Reed said in her report that the scratches appeared old.

Cecilia was upset, Bennett says, but overall the situation didn’t seem serious, so the family continued onto the beach.

Now Bennett wishes he had reported the incident to police right away, but the cabin had no phone and he wasn’t carrying a cell phone.

Back at home, Malo carried Sissy to the porch. The puppy’s brother, Bro, laid his head on her. Just as Reed arrived in response to Malo’s call, Sissy died.

Upon returning to their cottage, the Bennetts found a note from police. A few minutes later, Reed showed up.

Bennett says he was shocked to learn the dog was dead. He was stunned to be arrested for the first time in his life. Bennett was taken to the police station and later released.

Rouse wants to know why, if the girl was injured as Bennett described, the family went to the beach for a few hours rather than calling police or medics.

“He races up and hits the dog with a rock, yells at the owner, then he walks away, goes to the beach, has a good time,” Rouse said.

Cannon Beach has a leash law, but Rouse said officers pick up only dogs that are causing problems. Malo’s dogs never have, police said.

Malo lives in Cannon Beach full time now, having sold a farm in Sheridan. She and her husband, now deceased, spent summers in the coastal town for many years, running a drive-in, then a fish market.

“He is trying to make this like a big deal, that dogs don’t mean anything. Well, they do,” Malo said. “I’m 72 years old. I’ve raised my family. My dogs mean as much to me as his children mean to him.”

So far, Bennett has been back to the beach house just once, when he and his lawyer videotaped the route to the beach.