Alleged Pit Bull Attacks Boy During Lacrosse Practice

In April, the Maryland Court of Appeals set a when it announced that owners face increased liability if their dog attacks—labeling them definitively .

Less than two weeks after the court’s opinion was released, a parent said a pit bull attacked and bit a boy at Tracey’s Elementary School during a peewee lacrosse practice.

On May 4 at about 9:45 a.m., the Green Hornets' 10-year-old boys lacrosse team was practicing at the school when a black dog ran out from the woods and onto the field.

According to Marc Griswold, a Green Hornets dad who attended the practice, the dog appeared to be a pit bull and aggressively barked at one of the boys on the field. The dog then bit the boy in the calf, drawing blood, he said.

“It was a bad event,” Griswold said. “It was not at all a peaceful dog. You would definitely run away if approached by it.”

While sitting in his car, Griswold heard parents shouting, “a dog just bit a kid,” and as he looked up he saw several parents facing the animal with lacrosse sticks.

Anne Arundel County Animal Control Administrator Robin Small confirmed the incident and said initial reports indicated the dog was a pit bull. Small said the investigation is ongoing, so she couldn’t definitively confirm that the dog was a pit bull.

Small said she couldn’t comment on other aspects of the incident due to the pending investigation, but did confirm that the dog was in Animal Control’s custody.

“The public is not at risk. We have the dog here [at Animal Control],” Small said.

A spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Police Department said police officers responded to the scene and helped apprehend the animal.

Griswold said three officers worked together to contain the dog and used stun guns to do so, but a police spokesman could not confirm that information. Griswold also told Patch another dog was loose on the field, but did not attack any of the lacrosse players or parents.

Severna Park Patch editor Leslie Hunt contributed to this article.