JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – An 80-year-old Jacksonville man has to learn to walk again after two pit bulls mauled him at his daughter’s Westside home, and his family wants to know why the dogs are still on the property.
Carl Graham was hospitalized at UF Health Shands with at least five dog bites on his legs — wounds so severe that one image had to be censored.
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“All muscle, that’s what he bit. All muscle,” Graham said.
According to an Animal Care and Protective Services report, Graham went to his daughter’s home off Kirkland Road on Jacksonville’s Westside to pick up his grandson. Two pit bulls at the property belonged to his daughter’s boyfriend. Graham said he knew the dogs were there, but believed they were chained up.
When he opened the gate to enter the yard, a smaller dog attacked first. Then a larger dog joined in.
“The big one came, jumped up on my chest, trying to get my throat, and I kept fighting him,” Graham said. “He knocked me down, slid down, bit my calf, and that’s where he did the damage.”
The dogs’ owner had to beat the animals off Graham with a stick. Graham believed he would’ve died if the owner had not been there. Graham’s daughter then took him to the emergency room.
Graham’s niece, Mary Graham, sat vigil at his hospital bedside.
“Anybody in their right mind knows that’s just not a bite,” Mary Graham said. It looks “like he had been mauled.”
Animal Care and Protective Services Chief Mike Bricker said his agency receives about five dog bite calls a week, but most are not serious. Animal care officers went to the property after the attack on Carl Graham — but hit a wall.
“The owners are not making it easy,” Bricker said. “They don’t want to talk to us about the dogs. They won’t give us the ability to ask for a surrender or anything. They don’t want to talk to us until we get a warrant.”
A panel of five animal services officers reviewed the case and unanimously agreed the dogs are dangerous and should be removed from the property. The agency went to court seeking a temporary removal order.
Carl Graham’s daughter, Carla, attended the hearing and asked the court to let her keep the dogs. The judge agreed with her, writing that Graham “arrived at the house where the dogs are fenced in” and “was advised not to enter the property but to call the owner first to meet him at the gate.” The judge also wrote that “the dogs were protecting the property at the time the victim opened the gate without calling the owner first.”
Carl Graham disputes that account.
“She did not tell me that,” Graham said. “If she’d have told me that, I would have never opened that gate.” News4JAX made multiple attempts to reach Carla Graham, but her phone never connected the call.
Mary Graham, Carl’s niece, learned of the judge’s ruling after News4JAX informed her and called it devastating. Carl Graham was never informed of the investigation or the legal proceedings. When we asked ACPS Chief Bricker about that, he said families are usually not informed of the investigative or legal process, unless they call.
“Somebody needs to be held accountable,” she said. “They need to put those dogs down. Because it’s not gonna stop.”
Carl Graham echoed that.
“Want them to put them to sleep,” he said. “Ain’t no telling what they’re allowed to do.”
Even though the judge denied the temporary removal of the dogs, they have been officially declared dangerous, and a permanent removal is pending.
In order to keep the dogs, the owners must do a number of things to ensure they will not be a hazard, including obtaining a special insurance policy to cover the animals. If the owners don’t, the dogs will eventually be euthanized.