Ving Rhames' Pet Dogs Kill a Man
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy
An employee of Ving Rhames' was allegedly mauled to death Friday by the actor's pet dogs. The victim's name has not been released, but he was in fact the caretaker for the dogs -- reportedly four of them, "the size of lions" -- for the past two years. Described only as a 40-year-old African American, he was spotted on the front lawn on the property adjacent to Rhames' early in the morning, at which point the LAPD was called. The four dogs, three bull mastiffs and one English bulldog, suspected to have been involved in the incident have been seized. Rhames was not at home and has so far not given a statement. Considering he's attached to star in a number of films in the next year, I'm guessing that he was on location somewhere.
This is the sort of tragedy I would expect to befall an employee of Marcellus Wallace, but not the actor who played him. The real Ving Rhames seems like too nice a guy to have this happen on or near his property. Of course, he didn't actually have anything to do with the incident, but obviously he has some mean-ass dogs. Hopefully he won't have to endure any wrongful death suits as a result of his decision to own such violent animals; certainly the unnamed man was a canine expert and had to have been responsible enough -- not to say he was at fault for his own death, but he knew the risk and the care required and unfortunately had a fatal accident despite that knowledge. From what the police have been able to determine, the caretaker died after jumping Rhames' fence onto the lawn next door. It has not been officially confirmed that the dogs were the cause of death; they are currently at a shelter being tested for traces of the man's blood. Although he had bites all over his body, it is possible the man suffered a heart attack or some other ailment. Photos of the dogs can be seen here and here.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-04-2007 @ 1:37PM
L.G. said...
I looked into this terrible incident further late last night and I learned that it isn't really as macabre and shocking a tragedy as it initially seemed.
Police are saying that the dogs are all actually really friendly, with no prior history of attacks or behavior issues. They speculate that the caretaker may have had a heart attack since none of the bite wounds on the man's body appear to have been critical or life-threatening.
They do not expect to charge Rhames with a crime, as it looks to have been a horrible, but complete accident.
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8-04-2007 @ 2:37PM
Ethan Stanislawski said...
Seriously, Michael Vick could use a couple of dogs like that.
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8-04-2007 @ 3:24PM
sam.hage said...
I have a bull mastiff and they only attack when provoked or when around other rowdy animals. so we will never know exactly what happened.
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8-04-2007 @ 3:59PM
Nick Justicz said...
The dogs went medieval on his ass.
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8-04-2007 @ 5:02PM
Ney Fonseca said...
The heart attack seems a lot more plausible. It just pisses me off when the press jumps on the vicious dog mauling angle at every opportunity and, in general, there's always more to the story than what's published, but the public never gets to hear the whole tale, consequently adding to the many myths about dogs. The reality is that dogs don't go psycho serial killers in a beat. People do.
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8-04-2007 @ 9:00PM
soundoftheground said...
"It has not been officially confirmed that the dogs were the cause of death; they are currently at a shelter being tested for traces of the man's blood. Although he had bites all over his body, it is possible the man suffered a heart attack or some other ailment."
at least the headline doesn't insinuate anything...
amateur.
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8-20-2007 @ 2:47PM
Brad said...
Christopher Campbell is a completely un-educated prick.
Try doing a tiny minute amount of research on the breed before you use words like: "mean-ass dogs, violent animals" In fact about half of your second paragraph is complete crap. The Mastiff is known for it's large size, yet GENTLE nature!!! I have owned two mastiffs and both have been wonderful dogs.
All we need is more media BS about violent dogs, you guys are already trying to eradicate bulldogs in California, hey I got a great idea, kill all dogs and everyone can just own cats. Better yet lets just kill all the humans, cause they kill more people than dogs do.
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8-10-2007 @ 12:59AM
Stephanie said...
I have a Mastiff and he is one of the most loving dogs I have ever owned. Yes, @ times he can be protective and territorial but that is his nature, to protect his family. Even though he acts like this he would not attack a human being unless he knew that himself or his family were in danger. Dogs are not born mean, it is humans that make them that way! That man that was "mauled" had to have done something harmful or threatening to provoke those dogs to attack. I doubt they would just attack out of nowhere seems as they were "friendly" to the police. It pisses me off that these days when a human gets "attacked" by a dog that it is automatically the dogs fault. Do people not realize that WE are the reason some dogs do those things! I think that man got what he deserved for being stupid around those dogs!
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