Dog owner disputes Elgin mayor's account of pit bull attack

An Elgin woman whose pit bulls are accused of attacking Mayor Ed Schock last month said Tuesday her one of her dogs never left her front porch and the other merely was trying to sniff the mayor's German shepherd.

"He just ran up to him and smelled him," Silvia Lugo said during an administrative hearing at city hall that will determine whether one of her dogs should be declared "dangerous."

Mark Schuster, the administrative hearing officer, continued the hearing to Aug. 24 so Lugo could call witnesses in her defense.

Lugo received several citations for the June 24 incident, which occurred in front of her home on the 200 block of Plum Street, on the city's east side.

Four tickets were for not having her dogs on a leash and not having a collars with rabies tags. Lugo said she recently moved to Elgin from North Carolina and couldn't find the proper tag for her male pit bull, Chico. She did produce tags for her female pit bull, Chata, which she maintains says never left her porch.

Lugo acknowledged she was at fault for those offenses, but plans to fight the city's contention that her dog exhibited biting or attacking behavior and therefore must be declared dangerous.

If she loses on the dangerous animal charge, she will be fined $1,000 under a new city law and have to obtain $100,000 in liability insurance.

Also, under a new set of rules that took effect June 1, Lugo would have to register Chico at city hall, muzzle him when outside, and have the dog neutered and microchipped.

Schock, who was not at the hearing, said in a phone interview Tuesday that both of Lugo's dogs bounded aggressively off the front porch, forcing him and his dog, Rako, to retreat near a tree in the public parkway.

The mayor said he kicked one of the dogs away and hit the other with a leash. Neither Schock nor his dog were injured.

Schock said the owner shouted for the pit bulls to stop but neither did.

"They just tore off the porch and raced toward us. Both dogs came off the porch very aggressively," he said. "This wasn't two dogs meeting on the sidewalk on leashes. Were they going to bite us? I don't know. I wasn't going to wait and see."

One witness Lugo plans to call Aug. 24 is her sister-in-law, Desiree Ramirez, who also lives in the home on Plum Street.

Ramirez said the two dogs barked at Schock and his dog, but did not attack.

"Our dogs are loving dogs," she said. "These dogs have never attacked anybody."

Added Lugo: "I still have the dogs. They're my babies."