A one-month-old baby was mauled to death by her family dog as she lay in bed on Tuesday morning, the NYPD has confirmed.
The horror unfolded inside the Queensbridge Houses complex in Long Island City.
The little girl was sleeping in a bed with her mother, 27, and her partner when a 6-month-old German Shepherd-pit bull mix jumped up and began chewing on the little girl’s face just after 6:30 a.m., reports CBS New York.
The dog managed to bite off “a substantial portion” of the baby’s face, reports The New York Post. The baby was unconscious when first responders arrived at the scene. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The child was born on April 13.
“She told me she woke up and the dog was eating the baby!” a friend of the mother told The Post. “Chewing on the baby’s face!”
“I said, ‘Y’all laying right next to the baby?! How the f*** do you not hear the baby cry?!’ She didn’t have that, she just kept saying, ‘We was laying right there! We was laying right there!’”
Neighbors said they woke up to the sound of “piercing screams of a mother in anguish.”
Police confirmed that two other dogs, including a pitbull, were found inside the apartment.
Neighbor Shanel Norville told The Post that she had warned the baby’s mother days before to restrain the dog on a leash, but she refused, explaining that the dog hadn’t bitten anyone.
”I told her, ‘That dog needs to be on a leash’.
She replied, “‘No, this dog don’t bite”.
Norville said she told the mother that all dogs bite.
In a separate interview with NBC New York, Norville voiced further strong opinions about the tragedy.
“That’s really sad. I feel bad for the mom, but at the end of the day, I feel like whoever was in that house, they weren’t being responsible. I’m sorry.”
Other neighbors told the station that police had visited the apartment previously due to unspecified disturbances.
“It’s pretty quiet around here today. I think that’s because of that. Everybody in the community is really close around here, so we all give our prayers and do what we can,” neighbor Enyer Cabrera told New York One.
New York City council member Julie Won said her heart was broken for the little girl and offered her condolences to the family at this “unimaginable time” in a statement on X.
Her office confirmed that the dog responsible for the attack had been removed from the building.
Won said that her office would continue to maintain communication with the local precinct and would continue trying to support the family.
New York City Housing Authority policy dictates that mixed-breed pitbulls are banned unless they were registered before 2010. All dogs, regardless of breed, must be under 25 pounds.
At the time of writing, no charges have been filed in the case. The Independent contacted the NYPD for more information.
Reports on the age and breed of the dog are conflicting in various media reports.
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