Breaking: NYC Pols Declare Selves Concerned About Dogs
Electeds indifferent to NYC's perpetual dog (and cat) killings are performatively outraged after a dogs-on-dog attack.
Headlines from Buffalo to Brooklyn
It’s May 9, 2025. This is The Weekly Poop.
This week, a chihuahua mix named Penny is recovering after she was attacked by two large dogs on the Upper West Side last weekend.
Reports say 10-year-old service dog Penny was walking with her person, Lauren Claus, Saturday evening when the attack occurred at 86th Street and Columbus Avenue. Rather than help Claus and bystanders as they struggled to free Penny, the man walking the larger dogs, described as “pit bulls,” reportedly “smashed the phone of an eyewitness who was filming the brutal attack,” and was “also seen physically pulling a bystander by the hair who was trying to help,” according to the Post.
When Penny was freed, the man with the two large dogs, who was not identified, left the scene.
To get this out of the way: “pit bull” is commonly used as a catch-all term advocates say amounts to slang. Absent more information about these particular dogs, however, it’s the term we’ll use here.
The Post spoke with a second area woman, Lauren Block, who said the same dogs attacked her two Shih Tzu mixes on Central Park West in January, killing 17-year-old Grover and maiming her other dog, Chuckie.
Block said the apparent owner of the pit bulls did nothing to stop them as they attacked Grover, and refused to identify himself afterward.
“I’m screaming at the top my lungs, ‘They’re killing him! They’re killing him! Get them off him!’ He said, ‘You stick your hands in there,’” Block told the Post. “He was just standing there, not making the effort.”
NYPD, being NYPD, declined to do anything at all after last weekend’s attack, despite accounts from several people who described the pit bulls’ owner assaulting bystanders as they tried to separate the dogs. Understandably, this doesn’t sit well with those whose dogs were attacked.
Cue City Council member and perpetual public office-occupier Gale Brewer, who has never met a grandstand she couldn’t issue faux-populist proclamations from.
"We need and deserve to feel safe in our community,” Brewer said in a statement. “We cannot let anyone terrorize neighborhoods, including dogs. The NYPD must be able to address an attack on a dog by another dog, and I will be introducing legislation to address such situations."
State Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar, a Queens rep presently angling for public advocate after dropping out of the race for city comptroller, piped up from the bleachers. On social media, Rajkumar wrote, “That this is not a crime is a wakeup call to update our laws ASAP,” according to Gothamist.
Couple things. New York state code contains a “dangerous dog” statute. The law prescribes escalating penalties for “dangerous” dogs and their owners, up to destruction of the animal and a class A misdemeanor top charge for people whose dogs are involved in multiple attacks. There are also civil penalties, including restitution for medical costs for injured humans and animals.
The law as written does not make it easy for complainants to get authorities to act against allegedly dangerous dogs. This is as it should be. The law also calls for graduated remedies, such as professional evaluation of the dog, mandatory spaying or neutering, and muzzling in public after an initial “dangerous” determination. Again, all well and good.
The statute is weak, however, in that it requires two adjudicated dog-on-dog attacks causing “serious injury or death” before a “dangerous” dog may be ordered removed from the public realm, either through “permanent confinement” or “euthanasia.”
Rather than preen for votes, Brewer and Rajkumar could publicly pressure NYPD and Alvin Bragg to enforce laws they already have at their disposal. This would help Claus and Block get some measure of justice for their dogs now, not at some later date that may never come at all.
In addition, a dog found to be “dangerous” has to literally kill a human being, under specific circumstances, to trigger the most serious criminal charge for owners, which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail.
But the primary weakness of the state’s dangerous dog law — as with many, many state and city laws — is inconsistent enforcement.
For a dog to be classified as dangerous, police or “dog control” officers must testify before a judge, who then determines whether further action is warranted. Since more serious penalties for dog-on-dog attacks don’t apply until a second offense, and neither NYPD nor Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg took action after the dogs in question killed Grover and injured Chuckie — even after Block filed a complaint with the city — the pit bulls were not considered dangerous under state law when they attacked Penny.
After two reported attacks by the same dogs with the same owner in four months, including one incident in which bystanders were allegedly assaulted, NYPD has yet to even name the alleged offender publicly. As far as police are concerned, the case, if there was a case, is closed. The district attorney, meanwhile, is nowhere. What makes Gale Brewer and Jenifer Rajkumar think new laws are the answer when those on the books are covered in dust?
Unless new laws aren’t the goal at all?
Though her record indicates no serious interest in helping animals, Rajkumar has already introduced a bill in Albany, “Penny’s Law,” that she claims will strengthen current code. Hope so. But it’s late in the session and if Rajkumar has her way she won’t hold state office next year. Nineteen years covering New York politics tells me her effort has little chance to help dogs, but it might get her a few votes in next month’s Democratic public advocate primary. So, mission accomplished there.
Brewer, who convened a related town hall this week (natch), says she will intro a City Council bill to address dog attacks. This is the same politician who has for years blown off New Yorkers’ pleas to address animal cruelty at Animal Care Centers of New York City, including misuse of prescription drugs and other abuses including one that advocates have likened to vivisection. The same politician who has nothing to say as NYC ACC carbonizes thousands of healthy and adoptable dogs and cats every year. Brewer isn’t railing against the establishment here. She is the establishment, as much as any NYC politician can be. Her history of inaction speaks louder than her words.
Rather than preen for votes, Brewer and Rajkumar could publicly pressure NYPD and Alvin Bragg to enforce laws they already have at their disposal. They could demand, loudly and often, NYPD investigate both attacks, and that Bragg act accordingly. This would help Claus and Block get some measure of justice for their dogs now, not at some later date that may never come at all. And it may help separate an alleged lowlife from his dogs, who have been through god-knows-what themselves.
The odds of Brewer and Rajkumar criticizing the city’s janky law enforcement apparatus are slim to none, of course. Do-nothing recognize do-nothing.
Reader donations keep The Scoop New York publishing.
If stories like this one matter to you, consider leaving a tip.
Plastic, PayPal or paper check. No Substack account required.
Here’s the latest New York companion animal news:
New York finally has a budget, which was so late and included so much unrelated legislation insisted upon by Governor Kathy Hochul that lawmakers didn’t know what they were voting on.
NYC media outlets want questions to ask at upcoming Democratic mayoral and comptroller debates. You know what to do.
After years of lawless and inhumane takings, advocates want Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg to “crack down” on pigeon poachers.
Following two years of New Yorkers’ 311 complaints, Bronx DA Darcel Clark and ASPCA removed 30-some animals from horrid conditions at a privately-owned “shelter” — which reportedly remains open.
ASPCA opened a sliding-scale vet clinic in Long Island City. If you need an appointment you should probably start trying ASAP.
Susquehanna SPCA will host a free first-come first-served “adoption event and wellness clinic” on Sunday, May 18.
Related: You don’t say.
Lollypop Farm in Rochester is hosting classes on companion animal behavior and first aid. Most of the courses are free to the public.
A group of 15 cats was rescued from a parking lot near Nassau County’s Meadowbrook Parkway after “authorities” confiscated the belongings of the homeless man who’d been caring for them, driving him from the area.
Nearly 70 cats were rescued from an apparent hoarding situation at a home in the Town of Islip, where investigators also found dozens of dead felines. Suffolk County ASPCA is asking for donations to care for survivors.
Dozens of companion animals were seized from a home in Cobleskill by state police and the Animal Shelter of Schoharie Valley, which also needs the public’s help to cover expenses because you know why.
Andrew Cuomo ditched his dog, Captain, reportedly to live with “a friend of the family,” which sounds like Cuomo-ese for “sent to a nursing home.”
Wherever this happened, the “shelter” must be named.
Godspeed Arthur, who escaped NYC’s brutal carriage horse industry with his life and spent the rest of his days free from abuse.
And finally: Try not to think about this the next time you let your dog lick your face.
Food recalls
The FDA announced no new pet food recalls this week,
Check here for info on earlier recalls.