A 40-year-old man was killed by a pack of dogs that attacked him in a residential neighborhood in South Texas Tuesday morning.
Deputies from the Aransas County Sheriff’s Department arrived at the scene near Monkey Road in Rockport at approximately 5 a.m. after receiving a 911 call from Adrian Arispe, who had heard someone screaming for help behind his home.
“He’s just laying there face down, naked, all torn up like a shark ate him. He had his shoes, socks, shirt ripped,” Arispe recounted to 3News.
An officer fired his service weapon and struck one of the attacking dogs, which dispersed the pack. The victim, later identified as Lewis Flores, received CPR at the scene and was taken to a Corpus Christi hospital, where he died.
Two arrests were made the following day on charges related to the fatal dog attack.
Guadalupe Carreon, 33, was arrested and booked in Aransas County Jail, and Mario Alberto Mendoza Pena, 33, was arrested in the Rio Grande Valley and will soon be extradited to Aransas County.
The dogs — three adults and two puppies — were located and are now in the custody of animal control, Judge Ray Garza told 3News.
Flores’ family has set up a GoFundMe page to assist with funeral costs.
Shortly before the incident in Rockport, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a bill targeting owners of dangerous dogs known as the Ramon Najera Act in honor of an 81-year-old Air Force veteran killed in a February dog attack in San Antonio.
Authored by Rep. Elizabeth Campos (D-San Antonio), HB 4759 aimed to change the definition of a dangerous dog to one that attacks without provocation and to increase criminal penalties for owners of dogs repeatedly committing unprovoked attacks. It also moved to protect the identity of those reporting dangerous dogs to the authorities to facilitate animal control investigations.
“Texas’s existing criminal laws penalize attacks by dangerous dogs — so much so that felony arrests have already been made of the dog owners responsible,” Abbott wrote, explaining his veto of the bill, according to USA Today. “The justice system should be allowed to work without the overcriminalization found in this bill.”
Abbott added that he plans to work with Rep. Campos to develop a better framework to prevent such tragedies, as a number of violent dog attacks have made news in Texas in the last year.
In addition to the latest killing in Rockport and the one in San Antonio, five unleashed pit bull terriers in Arlington mauled a man in February, as The Dallas Express reported. The victim required 79 stitches, and while the owner stopped the attack, he did not render aid, according to the victim’s statement.
Police later arrested the owner on a third-degree felony charge — attack by dog resulting in serious bodily injury — which is punishable by two to 20 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine.