Animal attack - owner is abusive and threatening!

Originally Posted by ardent_guy

Hi,

My parents were attacked by a dog while they were taking a walk in the suburbs of Chicago. They were pushed to the ground when the dog jumped on them. As a result, my father fell to the ground and broke his forearm in two places, which required emergency surgery in the ER to fix it. The owner of the dog, who was at the scene did nothing, but laugh when this happend and walked away with the dog, not even apologizing and helping my parents up!

My brother (with whom my parents are staying, since they are visiting the US) traced the owner today and mentioned about this incident and he was very abusive and threatened to hurt my brother physically if he did not leave his property. He also lied about the entire incident, totally changing the story as if he was the victim!

My brother has filed a police report and is pursuing legal channels to subpoena this guy. What else could be done in order to get damages for psychological trauma and the physical damage, and also the payment of hospital bills and for the surgery to the arm?

Please advise.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by ardent_guy

Thanks Gentle...The police report was filed both, when the incident took place and also after discovering the address of the owner (since we didnt know who the owner was and where he resided, in order to file a police report)...For the first police report, my mother accompanied my brother since she was at the scene and she fell to the ground as well (fortunately didnt suffer any injuries) and gave a description of the dog (it didnt bite but jumped on them which pushed them to the ground)...

My father was in the hospital all of this week, so he couldnt be there to file the report. Last night, after we found the owner and his residence, my brother went to the police to report the address of the person and mentioned his behavior (abusive, threatening and racist)...The cops said they'll go to his house and confront him or talk to him..they initially said they couldnt do much in this case, other than issue a violation ticket for not keeping the dog under leash where it was supposed to be under leash. They suggested that we could pursue legal channels and file a civil lawsuit.

what would be the grounds for a criminal lawsuit? We were in his property (had to be, since my brother went door to door to find out who the owner was and where he resided)....My mother was with him whenever this was done so she could identify the owner/dog from the scene. He seemed to be a bit inebriated and was hurling strong abusive language and threatened to attack physically if they wanted to settle this! My brother had to leave soon as it wouldnt help resolve the issue and went straight to the cops to explain this to them in brief.

Please advise.

Originally Posted by ardent_guy

Thanks Gentle...The police report was filed both, when the incident took place and also after discovering the address of the owner (since we didnt know who the owner was and where he resided, in order to file a police report)...For the first police report, my mother accompanied my brother since she was at the scene and she fell to the ground as well (fortunately didnt suffer any injuries) and gave a description of the dog (it didnt bite but jumped on them which pushed them to the ground)...

My father was in the hospital all of this week, so he couldnt be there to file the report. Last night, after we found the owner and his residence, my brother went to the police to report the address of the person and mentioned his behavior (abusive, threatening and racist)...The cops said they'll go to his house and confront him or talk to him..they initially said they couldnt do much in this case, other than issue a violation ticket for not keeping the dog under leash where it was supposed to be under leash. They suggested that we could pursue legal channels and file a civil lawsuit.

what would be the grounds for a criminal lawsuit? We were in his property (had to be, since my brother went door to door to find out who the owner was and where he resided)....My mother was with him whenever this was done so she could identify the owner/dog from the scene. He seemed to be a bit inebriated and was hurling strong abusive language and threatened to attack physically if they wanted to settle this! My brother had to leave soon as it wouldnt help resolve the issue and went straight to the cops to explain this to them in brief.

Please advise.