ELDORADO—The situation of an Eldorado family’s pet dog being killed by the neighbor’s pet dog has escalated to the point that harassment and intimidation has begun, this under the acknowledgement of—and in one case, at the hand of—the city’s mayor, Rocky James.
James and his gang of thugs (city ‘ordinance supervisor’ Billy Bradley, police commissioner Bill Briddick, and police chief Shannon Deuel) went out of their way just a day prior to a press conference held on the matter in late July in order to harass and intimidate the family of the dead dog, the Mitchells.
Worse, Disclosure has discovered what the connection may be that gives the owners of the animal that killed the Mitchell’s dog, Jonathan Roe and Ginger Tyring, the arrogance to believe they can behave the way they want and won’t encounter any problems.
And what Disclosure has discovered is the same old good-ol-boy network firmly in place in not only Saline, but in neighboring Gallatin County, that’s creating the hubris that lead to the Mitchell’s dog being ripped apart by Roe’s pit bull on July 18, 2013.
Fatal dog fight
The initial incident was outlined in the July-August issue: That Shawnna Mitchell’s 12-year-old son had taken their Shih Tzu, Charles, outside to play on the afternoon of July 18, and Roe’s pit bull, Memphis, was able to race around the Roe/Tyring fence (which does not enclose the yard) and maul the small dog.
As Memphis tore into Charles, the Mitchell boy grabbed some wood and tried to fend it off. A woman passing by saw the commotion and blood, and also tried to get the pit off the Shih Tzu.
The pit bull bit the Mitchell boy, and scratched the other woman. Both of them sought medical treatment. Neither injury was severe.
A report was made to authorities and the pit was taken in for observation by the vet in charge of the situation, Dr. Cliff Morris.
A veterinarian becomes the “administrator” (officer of the court) in circumstances that involve a dog attack or other animal issue.
The dog was returned to Roe/Tyring on July 29.
The two thirty-somethings, knowing that the Mitchell family could see and hear them outside their house, were dancing around and acting the fool in public, singing “Memphis is coming ho-ome!” repeatedly when they received the phone call that the dog would be returned to them.
The view of just some of the slashes inflicted on Shawnna Mitchell’s backyard above-ground pool in the overnight hours of July 31-August 1, just after a press conference was held about the Roe/Tyring dog that killed Mitchell’s family pet. Days later, false reports about the Mitchells were made to DCFS, as well as a false police report…something that’s a crime, but which remains uncharged.
Small claims filed
In the interim, however, Mitchell had taken matters into her own hands.
On July 22, she filed a small claims lawsuit against Roe in Saline County circuit court.
Given that the small claims was a civil suit, it didn’t involve any law enforcement or prosecutorial personnel.
Mitchell was asking for a settlement from Roe in a small amount: $10,000. This accounts for the loss of the family pet, lost wages, the fact that her son was bitten, and damages incurred regarding mental and emotional pain and suffering she and the boy went through over the incident.
It wasn’t much…but Mitchell advised Disclosure staff that if indeed she did prevail, she would use any money from damages awarded to go toward charity.
“I don’t have an exact place yet,” she said, “but it would be someone who does mission work. Our heart is in prison ministry, helping people that are released to find employment and get their life back on track. We have a prison ministry, so we help to show them how God restores marriages and families.
“We don’t want money,” she advised Disclosure. “We want justice.”
The case was set for a hearing on Disclosure’s print deadline, August 12.
Not vicious
At the time of the return of the pit bull, there had been no assessment made of the dog’s status at that time except for Morris to declare that it wasn’t a “vicious” dog under state statute.
With assistance from law enforcement, Morris determined that neither dog had been on its own property, the pit had attacked the Shih Tzu on another neighbor’s property, and the Shih Tzu was not on a leash.
Eldorado has a leash law requiring dogs outside be leashed. Roe was cited for Dog Running at Large, an ordinance violation, and nothing further.
On July 30, Saline County State’s Attorney Mike Henshaw announced that he would be holding a press conference the next day regarding the issue, and in particular, why no charges had been filed by his office (ordinance violations are handled with the city attorney—Eldorado’s—and not by the county prosecutor).
And on that day, the monkey wrench in the works, Rocky James, made something much bigger out of the case than what it was.
The Rocky crew
James, accompanied by his crew (Briddick, Bradley and Deuel) as he can do nothing alone, went to Mitchell’s home and, disrupting her routine, called her outside and essentially harassed her for nearly ten minutes in a confrontation that was apparently designed to intimidate her into leaving the Roe/Tyring duo alone.
During this ten-minute incident, James took turns with the others of his crew, running the gamut from trying to be Mitchell’s best buddies to trying to strong-arm her into letting the whole thing go.
James tried to placate Mitchell by making promises he would in no way have been able to keep; tried to cajole her into telling officials at the press conference the next day that she was just “going to let the whole thing go”; and even tried to intimidate her by expressing how he felt about her voicing her opinion.
On this latter front, he launched at Mitchell about postings she’d made on her Facebook page about the “dog trouble,” telling her the city had already had trouble with a dog issue and that he was “disappointed” in the fact that she’d made such posts…despite it being her First Amendment right to speak out, in a public forum, about what she thought about a public body, including the city of Eldorado and the pitiful job James was doing with “dog issues” in the city.
Press conference
Ultimately, Mitchell told the group to back off, and at the press conference the next day, held at the small courtroom in the Saline County Detention Center in Harrisburg, few words were exchanged between the two groups.
At the conference, Morris, as the case administrator, explained how he could not find the pit bull “vicious”: because it had not caused serious physical injury or death to a human. Further, the dog was determined to have been “being assaulted” by the two who came to help the Shih Tzu, and that “assault”—regardless of the fact that it was intended to be an act of beating the larger dog off the smaller, and wasn’t an attack in and of itself—could have been perceived, by the dog, as causing pain that in turn caused it to bite in self-defense.
That it had killed another dog was not qualification for “vicious,” so that designation was ruled out. That two people trying to defend a family pet were considered “assaulting” another family pet further ruled it out.
Morris said he was working on “dangerous,” but there were factors he was still investigating that precluded making the designation on that day.
One thing that Morris, and consequently Henshaw as well, pointed out is that even though no criminal charges were going to be brought in the case, any individual appealing the ruling of the administrator—were Morris to find that the dog didn’t meet “dangerous” criteria—could take the matter in front of a judge and, upon presentation of evidence of their own, could get the dog determined “dangerous,” which is a lower threshold.
“But I can’t make stuff up to deem this dog vicious,” Morris told those present at the July 31 presser.
Pool slashed, neighbor harassed
Media spoke with Mitchell following the press conference, and traveled to Eldorado to talk with Roe at his house next door, but Roe didn’t answer.
When Mitchell arose the next morning, Thursday, August 1, she found that her above-ground pool had been slashed in the night.
Three days later, one of Mitchell’s neighbors, Daniel Kinsey (who has been a vocal supporter of Mitchell, as he himself was lunged at and snapped at by Memphis in recent months when he was doing nothing more than standing at the fence talking with Roe), was on the receiving end of a verbal confrontation with Tyring while he was at his firepit in his own backyard.
Following this confrontation, Tyring is reported to have marched back into her house, brought out, not Memphis, but another pit bull they kept in the house.
A video Kinsey shot of this incident shows Tyring bringing out the dog, at first on a leash, then releasing it from the leash, leaving it in the yard and telling it to “Go…go bark…go bark!”
This was going on in the background while small children played in Kinsey’s yard in the foreground.
Fraudulent call made to agency
The next day, Monday, August 5, a Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) representative showed up at Mitchell’s home while she was at work.
Her 16-year-old son, babysitting the two younger children in the home (including the 12-year-old who was bitten by the pit bull), answered the door. While standing there trying to figure out what to do, the representative asked the youngest child, through the door, “if her mother beats her.”
At that point, the 16-year-old closed the door and contacted Mitchell, who subsequently contacted DCFS only to learn that “neighbors” had reported her, claiming:
They had witnessed her beating her child 14 times with a board outside her house, (a patently false accusation);
When sewer problems occurred in the residence because of roots growing through the pipes, her children were “forced to knock on the doors of neighbors to use the restroom” (even though the children weren’t home on the one day repairs were being made);
The children had untreated/neglected MRSA (while it was true the eldest child had contracted MRSA while at church camp, it was promptly diagnosed and treated; a nurse observed coming and going at the Mitchell’s place prompted this report);
Mitchell’s eldest child disappeared for weeks at a time and “nobody in the Mitchell family knew where he had gone” (also patently false, as the only time the children had been gone for lengthy periods of time was to church camp); and
Mitchell’s eldest son’s girlfriend “sleeps at the Mitchell home regularly in the eldest boy’s bed with him” (another patently false “fact,” as the only time the girl was in the house overnight was when the children were all in church camp and Mitchell was at home alone after this harassment started, and wanted another person present in the home, just in case.)
False police reports (which is a crime)
Added to this harassment of false reporting to DCFS was a police report, occurring on the same night, Monday, August 5.
In this false report, Roe and Tyring called Eldorado PD and reported that Daniel and Jordan Kinsey and Shawnna Mitchell were chasing Roe and Trying around “with an axe, ball bats, and some kind of spray.”
Eldorado police didn’t respond to this ridiculous call; however, Deuel informed Mitchell of it when she arrived at the department the next day to report the harassment regarding the DCFS report.
The Kinseys, in addition to all this, have had to call the police three times since the pit has been returned to the house, this for incessantly barking after dark.
Not surprisingly, moments after all three phone calls, the dog is returned to the house before the police pull up.
When police have arrived, no contact is made between authorities and Roe.
And further, the dog, which was finally deemed “dangerous” on August 1 by Morris (he submitted a letter to Roe/Tyring, asking Disclosure to hold off telling anyone about the “dangerous” designation until the owners were notified; however, the paper had already found out and had already submitted an article online), was seen outside several times without a muzzle.
A “dangerous” designation requires that the dog not only be on a leash when outside, but be muzzled any time when off the premises, a $50 fine, not be off the premises unless under the supervision of an adult, and that the dog be neutered within a couple of weeks.
Morris gave reasoning that these precautions needed to be taken because if the dog attacked another dog, it might go outside the premises in order to “attack a small kid mimicking prey.”
The premises are located within a short distance of the town’s middle school, and small children walk by it to get there.
Here’s why the preferential treatment…probably
However, none of this explains the preferential treatment shown Roe and Tyring, who aren’t the most likeable characters in this whole mess.
Disclosure, in early August, finally learned what might be the reason why all authorities are handling the situation with kid gloves, and why it appears Eldorado’s mayor and police chief are seeing to it that the harassment of Mitchell goes unresolved, and that Roe is being “taken care of” by being given advance notice of any “problems” that may arise from reports.
It turns out that Roe is the brother of Gallatin County Sheriff Shannon Bradley’s wife, Olivia Roe Bradley, and as such, even Roe’s petty criminality is being handled out of ‘professional courtesy’ by Saline County authorities.
This means that Mitchell has a hard row ahead of her, but many who have been victimized by the same city authorities in Eldorado—where they can’t seem to get rid of them, despite vocal opposition prior to each election—are hoping she prevails.