Mexicans protest detentions of dogs rounded up after fatal maulings
BY Associated Press
Saturday, January 12, 2013
1/12/13 at 4:38 AM
Dozens of protesters chanting "Free the dogs, arrest the criminals!" demonstrated outside Mexico City police headquarters Friday, demanding the release of 57 stray dogs seized over five suspected mauling deaths in recent weeks.
The protesters said the dogs are innocent, and many claimed the victims were probably killed by humans. They acknowledged the famished dogs that live in a hilltop park in an east-side slum where the bodies were found may have bitten the corpses after they were already dead.
"Dog friends, the people are with you!" the protesters chanted, as well as, "The dogs aren't criminals, the police are inept!"
"We are completely certain ... the dogs are innocent," said Nominis de Esparza, an animal activist who has adopted 30 cats.
Autopsies determined that the three women, a teenage boy and a baby found in the park since mid-December died of loss of blood due to bites from multiple dogs.
But those findings have been met with widespread skepticism in a country where drug gangs frequently dump bodies of their victims in public spaces, and prosecutors seldom thoroughly investigate such crimes. The idea has taken hold among many that killers dumped the bodies in the park, hoping that packs of stray dogs would destroy the evidence.
Tests on the dogs have so far been inconclusive.
The city prosecutor's office said initial tests on the first 25 strays gave no indication they ate human flesh. An employee of the city prosecutors' office, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said almost no food of any kind was found in the dogs' stomachs, much less human flesh. But he said officials were still awaiting results from tests on the dogs' fur and paws to see if any human DNA was present.
The 57 mutts rounded up at the Cerro de la Estrella park, where the attacks occurred, include a few about the size of a Labrador. Twenty-three are puppies or young dogs.
Original Print Headline: Protesters want dozens of stray dogs released
Associated Images:
A puppy caught near the site of five deaths sits at a city dog pound in Mexico City earlier this week. DARIO LOPEZ-MILLS/ Associated Press
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