A 68-year-old Illinois man is dead after a pack of loose dogs attacked him on a residential street — and neighbors say the danger had been roaming their block for years.

James L. Gibson was killed late Thursday night in Washington Park, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.

Police found him suffering catastrophic injuries in the 2100 block of North 49th Street.

This was not a freak encounter with one dog that suddenly slipped a leash. Residents described a familiar pack that had repeatedly escaped a nearby fenced yard and left people afraid to walk outside.

The first reports did not identify a breed. Images later circulated of the dogs seen on the same block, and neighbors described them as pit bulls or pit bull-type dogs.

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Police had not publicly confirmed a breed as of Saturday.

FOX 2 reported that Washington Park officers were called at about 10:45 p.m. Thursday. Officers saw at least five dogs when they arrived and shot three during the response, but police said the animals ran off and had not been located by Friday.

Neighbor Aretha Harper told the station she had encountered the same dogs only hours before Gibson was killed. One followed her up her front steps and would not leave when she tried to shoo it away.

Later that night, Harper’s husband witnessed the attack and yelled for her to call 911. Other residents said the dogs had been getting out of a nearby fenced yard for roughly two years.

Fred Harris said people had become afraid to go outside. He was especially worried about allowing his four-year-old granddaughter to play outdoors because no one knew when the pack might appear.

Then came the detail that made the neighbors’ warnings impossible to dismiss.

Google Street View imagery captured in April appears to show a pack of dogs running after the mapping vehicle along North 49th Street.

Authorities have not said every dog in those images was involved in Gibson’s death. What the pictures do establish is that multiple loose dogs were roaming that block months before the attack.

Street View is a series of snapshots, not a continuous police record. Even so, seeing dogs chase a camera car down the same road where a man would later be mauled is chilling.

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The conflicting accounts are now central to the investigation. Police initially described the animals as strays, while residents told reporters the dogs repeatedly escaped from a particular fenced yard.

St. Clair County Animal Control told FOX 2 it had no record of calls concerning dogs on that section of North 49th Street.

Residents still described years of fear. The gap raises an urgent question: how can a neighborhood live with the same danger for two years without an official trail strong enough to force action?

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Police and animal-control officers were still searching for the dogs that fled. Authorities had not publicly announced an owner, charges, or a final determination about what would happen to any animal captured.

The investigation will sort out ownership, breed, prior complaints, and legal responsibility. None of that changes the central fact: James Gibson lost his life after people on his street say they had been waiting for something terrible to happen.

A warning does not protect anyone if it never reaches the people with the power to act — or if it reaches them and nothing changes.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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