BRIGHTON, Colo. — Dog attacks like the one that injured a 12-year-old boy and his grandmother in Golden Wednesday are not uncommon.
Stacey Cohen usually can’t say enough nice things about her quaint, six-acre home just off I-25 and 144th Ave. in Brighton.
“It's a lovely neighborhood,” she said.
But what happened here last month shattered her normal sentiment.
“I was inside, and I was about to go out and get the mail. And I didn't see anything out here, so I walked out,” Cohen said while standing on her front deck. “The yellow dogs came up on my deck, and they were threatening me, growling and barking and being really aggressive.”
She captured video of those two yellow dogs on her front deck and another aggressive black dog running around to the other side of the deck.
“I was telling the dogs to go home, go home, and I was pointing toward home. And I thought they were leaving,” Cohen said.
Rather than leave, they attacked.
“The three of them all crowded around me, and they were viciously biting my legs,” Cohen said. “The attack was so vicious, I did not think I was going to survive at one point.”
She finally managed to kick her way into the front door and call 911.
“My legs were just covered in blood,” Cohen said. “I was bit in multiple places. I was absolutely terrified.”
Adams County sheriff's deputies, paramedics and animal control officers responded.
A full month after the attack, Cohen still doesn't know where her neighbor's dogs ended up.
"They won't even tell me if they've given the dogs back," she said.
Cohen filed a report with Adams County Animal Management. Denver7 reached out to the animal control officer for comment about the status of the dogs, but the officer and the county have not yet responded.
An ordinance on the Adams County government website states, "…it shall be unlawful for any person to unlawfully own, possess or harbor a dog that has caused… bodily injury to a person.”
According to court records obtained by Denver7, the owner of the dogs, 43-year-old Ben Garner, is due in court October 12 on charges of ownership of a dangerous dog — bodily injury.
Cohen plans to be in court that day.
“You can either speak out, or you can stay shut up and be afraid,” Cohen said. “And it's not going to be any worse if you speak out than if you stay shut up and be afraid.”
For now, she’s changing her daily routine a bit.
“They'll get out again,” Cohen said. “Whenever I walk out of my house, I carry this bat.”
Cohen is also installing a fence around her property.
