Hall County Animal Control picked up two dogs owned by the same man whose dog was killed by sheriff’s deputies June 23 after they attacked and bit a man Friday afternoon.
According to Maj. Jeff Strickland, a man was mowing his lawn when he saw two dogs run toward him from out of the woods. The two dogs bit the man on the forearm and neck, Strickland said. The man was able to fight the dogs off with a stick, and call animal control to have the dogs removed, Strickland said.
The victim, when contacted by The Times, confirmed the details of the incident, but declined to be interviewed and did not want his name to be published.
The dogs’ owner, Frank Lee Reeves, was given two citations for his dogs running loose and two citations for the dogs not having tags.
Reeves’ dog, Leonard, was wounded by a bullet and another dog, Betsy, was fatally shot by Hall County sheriff’s deputies who entered the residence June 23 to look for Reeves’ nephew, Clyde Jess Reeves III, who was wanted on an aggravated assault charge. Reeves also owns a third dog named Homer.
A departmental investigation concluded that Hall County sheriff’s deputies were justified when they fired on Reeves’ three dogs in Reeves’ home, Hall County Sheriff’s Maj. Terry Conner said after the incident.
Reeves, who was in another room when deputies came in his house to arrest his nephew on a felony warrant, said he heard anywhere between 15 and 20 rounds fired inside his home. His neighbor, Tommy Waters, who said he heard the gunshots from his home said he heard at least 12 shots fired.
Reeves has maintained that his dogs are harmless.
Since 1999, two of Reeves’ neighbors have made three formal complaints to Gainesville-Hall County Animal Control about his dogs running loose in the area, but Reeves wasn’t cited because the dogs were tied up.
In April 2007, Betsy bit a child, but Animal Control did not write a citation or deem her a dangerous dog because the bite was provoked, Gainesville-Hall County’s Animal Control Director Mike Ledford said. A group of children were throwing rocks and screaming at Betsy when she bit one of the children, according to the report.