WEST PARK, Fla. — A West Park man says he saw trouble coming long before three dogs mauled a neighbor Monday afternoon — because the same dogs had already gone after him.
“I knew it was going to happen because it happened to me when I was cleaning my side walk,” said Juan Echavarria.
6 p.m. report:
Echavarria recorded cellphone video earlier this summer showing himself fending off three dogs with trash bags. When one tried to bite, he kicked it away.
“One of the dogs tried to grab my legs and I kicked them with my right foot,” he said.
Echavarria believes the same dogs are responsible for Monday’s attack near the intersection of Southwest 38th Street and 58th Avenue.
Ring camera video obtained exclusively by Local 10 News Tuesday shows the victim screaming as the dogs charge, knock him down, and drag him on the ground multiple times.
At one point, the man leapt onto a power box and climbed a tree in a desperate attempt to escape.
“Even when he jumped to the coconut tree, those dogs jumped on the coconut tree and grabbed him. Bit that man all over,” said Sonel, another neighbor who said he rushed to save the man.
“What was he like when you saved him?” Local 10’s Aaron Maybin asked.
“He was bad. Blood all over him. He was bad,” Sonel replied.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office said doctors had to sedate the victim at Memorial Regional Hospital.
Neighbors said the dogs squeezed through a fence to get out.
Alberto Dominguez, who lives nearby, said he saw the attack unfold from his home security camera.
“It could be a kid. My cat’s here, it could be a cat. My wife is pregnant, it could be her,” Dominguez said. “I could hear the screams from my camera. By the time he got over here, he was on the ground fighting them.”
Dominguez added that he found the man covered in blood.
“He’s bloody, everything down here is all blood,” Dominguez said. “His shoes were on the street. He was barefooted. And he was just shaking, like that, shaking.”
Another neighbor called 911, and paramedics rushed the victim away in an ambulance. His torn shirt was later discovered hanging on a nearby fence.
Following the incident, an animal care officer and sheriff’s deputy located the dogs inside a backyard shed.
Authorities said the owner’s boyfriend voluntarily surrendered the dogs to Animal Care, where they were euthanized.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office confirmed the dogs’ owner, Johnecca Peeks, 37, was arrested Monday on an active warrant for grand theft out of Manatee County. Deputies said his arrest was not related to the attack involving the three dogs.
Copyright 2025 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
