A family from Hampton County, South Carolina, is suffering the loss of their 6-year-old son, who was attacked to death by a pit bull this week.
According to the Hampton County Sheriff’s Office, a 6-year-old boy was attacked by a pit bull in Brunson, South Carolina at about 2 pm on Wednesday.
When the police arrived at the scene, the child was already dead.
Officials said Hampton County animal control took the dog and sacrificed it after the attack.
On Wednesday night, the child’s mother posted a moving video on Facebook.
In the video, she said that her son was attacked by a pit bull that had been abandoned and she was trying to find a home for.
“I was a defender of the pit bull … and what happened today happened so fast that there was nothing anyone could do,” said the mother through tears.
She said the family is applying for a job right now.
“We are going through the most difficult thing in our lives right now,” she said. “It doesn’t even seem real that we’re going to wake up tomorrow and our son won’t be here.”
Under South Carolina law for any child death in the state, the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is investigating the case.
A few days before the attack, the Hampton County mother posted a photo of the pit bull (shown at the top of this article) to see if anyone wanted to adopt the dog, which appeared to have been purposely abandoned by previous owners. In the post, she indicated that the dog looked good with children and was not aggressive by what she could say.
“Pit bulls represent only 6% of the canine population, but they are responsible for 68% of dog attacks and 52% of dog-related deaths since 1982,” said an article in TIME magazine 2014.
However, advocates of pit bulls feel that dogs are judged unfairly by society.
“It really comes down to being responsible owners,” Sara Enos, founder of the American Pit Bull Foundation, told TIME magazine. “Any dog of any breed can be aggressive, no matter how it is treated.”
In the case of Hampton County, the mother of the boy who was attacked did not own the pit bull.
In October, the canine bather in A Laurens County, South Carolina, was probably attacked to death by dogs this week, officials said to several media sources.
In 2019, a 52-year-old woman from Greenville was attacked to death by her own dogs.
Island Packet first reported this story here.
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This story will be updated.
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