Pit bull attack

The more some people talk, the less credible they sound.
Take the case of Maureen Faibish, whose 12-year-old son, Nicholas, was killed last week in his San Francisco home by one of the family’s two pit bulls. Faibish said something about her male dog, Rex, caused her to be concerned for her son’s safety so she shut her son in the basement and pushed a shovel up against the door. She told him to stay there while she ran errands. He escaped and was mauled to death. “Typical Nicky, he wouldn’t listen to me,” his mother said, in the Associated Press story.
She should have stopped talking right there, but she didn’t.
Of her pit bulls, she said, “I never saw any kind of violent tendencies.” Except, on the day before Nicholas died, she refused to welcome neighbors into the house because of the dogs. And the next day, she separated her son from the dogs. Although no one actually knows which dog was responsible for the boy’s death, Faibish is sure. “I think of Rex as someone who … murdered my child,” she said.
She said the story is not about her beloved pit bulls – a breed known for unexpected, aggressive, behavior – but about “my precious little boy” – the one she left alone and locked up without a means of escape – even in the event of a fire.
Faibish sent her 9-year-old son to buy his brother snacks to eat. He had video games to play. “Nicky was happy down there,” his mother said. He was so happy, he struggled against the barricades his mother installed until he escaped.
She said, “We treated the dogs like members of the family.” And, she treated her son like a dog by locking him up while her dogs roamed free.
She said, “It’s Nicky’s time to go. When you’re born you’re destined to go and this was his time.” That day was also the pit bull Ella’s time to go. A police officer shot and killed the dog when it prevented him from entering the apartment. Rex was captured in the back yard and taken to an animal shelter. Now, Faibish would like to help fate determine it’s time for Rex to go because he mauled her son.
She said that she “loves the dogs to death” but the only thing she said about her good-natured, popular sixth-grade son was a disparaging – “typical, Nicky, he wouldn’t listen to me.” Typical pit bull – in the heat of the moment it attacked.
She said, “Keep our family and son in your prayers.” If she means prayers to the God of the Mosaic law of Exodus 21:29 (NIV), He mandated confinement for violent animals. “If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also must be put to death.”
If Faibish had applied that law’s pragmatic treatment of violent animals, it would have given her son and family a prayer of a chance of co-existing with their beloved pit bulls.
Fortunately, for Faibish she does not live under the Mosaic laws, she lives under the law of grace where God offers forgiveness for our inexplicably, bad decisions – and through His word admonishes us, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:8, 9 (NIV)
Unfortunately, Faibish is not ready for that, she said, “I have no regrets about that day.” As long as she continues to justify her choices, she will not hear what she is saying and thus realize the role she played in her son’s death.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)