Ohio mother-daughter duo sets pet pit bulls on store worker who caught them shoplifting to make their escape
CLEVELAND, OHIO: A woman-daughter pair was sentenced to prison after both of them let loose their violent pit bulls on a supermarket worker who caught them shoplifting.
According to a verdict handed down by a Summit County judge, Linda Snow of Norton will spend four to six years in prison on a second-degree felony charge of felonious assault over the August 2019 assault at an Acme Fresh Market in Akron, Ohio. Her daughter Jennifer Clark, 38, of Akron, was handed a suspended three-year prison sentence after she pleaded guilty to charges of robbery and endangering children. Nevertheless, she must still serve 90 days in jail as part of her punishment and thereafter will be on probation for three years.
Snow and Clark were on their way to take a cart full of food from Acme Fresh Market in Akron’s Kenmore neighborhood without paying for the same on August 16, 2019, when they were caught by a 55-year-old Acme worker in the parking lot of the store. Snow opened the door to her car which had three pit bulls inside. Two of the three dogs attacked and seriously injured the worker, who had to be hospitalized. The worker suffered a serious groin injury.
Clark’s 11-year-old son, who was also in the vehicle, witnessed the violent incident. The mother and daughter then drove off with the dogs. “This was a horrible incident,” Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh said in a statement. “The victim suffered significant physical injuries because of the attack. ... As a dog owner myself, I am appalled at how the dogs were used in this assault”. Akron Police Department Captain DH Laughlin was also left shocked by the instance and said that it was the first time in his 22-year career that he’d ever seen anyone use attack dogs to help them escape a crime scene.
Last month, Indiana's Jennifer Nicole Connell was charged with three counts of neglect of a dependent after her pit bull terrier killed her 26-day-old son, Julian. 38-year-old Connell was arrested on June 30 from her residence in the 1900 block of Greenbush Street, Lafayette. It is the same house where her dog killed the infant six months earlier. According to a probable cause affidavit, Connell had two dogs living in her home at the time of the incident and the pit bull terrier mix was behaving aggressively toward the other dog, as well as toward Connell, her teenage son, and her infant.
The affidavit states that Connell told authorities she was trying to find the pit bull terrier a new home after the animal had become aggressive toward the baby in a recent incident. Connell's infant son was left on her bed to sleep on the morning of January 25, when the aggressive dog entered the room and first attacked the smaller dog. The teen was able to remove the smaller dog from the room with multiple injuries, but he couldn't believe his eyes when he returned to the bedroom. He saw the pitbull terrier standing over the infant with a bloody mouth and chest.