SALINE CO.—Saline County State’s Attorney Mike Henshaw has announced a press conference for tomorrow, Wednesday, July 31, 2013, regarding the incident we’ve covered extensively here at Disclosure both online and at the e-Edition/print version (current edition) about the dog attack in Eldorado two weeks ago.
Here’s the press release:
On July 18, 2013, at approximately 5:59 p.m., the Eldorado Police Department received a report of a dog fight in the neighborhood of 1800-1802 State Street, in Eldorado.
According to a police report filed with our office, a pit bull attacked and killed a Shih Tzu. In addition, two individuals were bitten by the pit bull according to the report. The pit bull was subsequently impounded at the Saline County Animal Control facility for a period of 10 days due to the owner’s failure to procure shot records for the dog.
Subsequent to these events, our office has received numerous phone calls from anxious members of the Eldorado community pertaining to the future of the pit bull and related public safety issues.
Accordingly I am scheduling a press conference for 4 p.m. on July 31, 2013, in the small courtroom located adjacent to the Saline County State’s Attorney’s Office at 1 N. Main Street, Harrisburg, Illinois. I will discuss Illinois Law relating to the “vicious dog” statute. Members of the media are invited to attend.
In addition, I have also invited various Eldorado public officials and the Saline County Animal Control Administrator to attend.
Respectfully,
Michael J. Henshaw
Saline County State’s Attorney
Smokey. RIP.
Public opinion has it that Eldorado has already had enough problems with the law avoiding dog issues or, conversely, creating them. How this will be handled remains to be seen…but it’s probably about time someone does something with the lax law enforcement in ‘rado when it comes to these kinds of matters. There are laws on the books to deal with vicious dogs and people who raise them/tend to them. Brian Shinkle learned that hard lesson in late 2008 when he lost the election for state’s attorney, in part because he refused to enforce laws on the books as they regarded dogs and the care and keeping of them in the state of Illinois.
Apparently Henshaw knows them and is not afraid to address them. We’ll see what happens after tomorrow’s press conference.