Saturday, September 3, 2011

Death gets a BAD RAP

In retrospect, the matter was summed up succinctly by one blogger who wrote: "A pit bull killed it's owner. Again. End of story." But as the story broke, the identity of this particular victim made things rather uncomfortable for the pit bull promoters.


On Aug 11, Bad Rap member Darla Napora was mauled to death by her pit bull, "Gunner". The last time Greg Napora had last seen his pregnant wife, she was asleep, in bed with their 2 pit bulls. When he returned home at noon that day, he encountered a grisly scene - his wife, unconscious and bleeding from multiple wounds, on the floor, with the pit bull standing over her. She died shortly thereafter, and the pit bull was shot after escaping from the yard and threatening police officers. 
Greg and Darla Napora
The actions of Darla's husband here seem rather puzzling. His first actions after making the grisly discovery were reportedly to call his wife's employer to let them know she would not be coming to work, to shut down their facebook page which had featured pictures of Darla and the animal that killed her, to secure the services of a lawyer, and to issue a statement, not so much lamenting his deceased wife and child as to praise the animal which had just killed them, and to make a stand in defense of pit bulls in general. His actions offer insight into the mindset of hard core pit bull advocates.
On cue, pit bull activists took to the internet to begin the damage control process. The normal strategy in the aftermath of this type of horrific mauling appears to be to blame the owner, minimize the attack, or claim the animal was not actually a pit bull. In this case however, the owner was one of their own, the deaths of mother and child made the attack rather difficult to minimize, and the dog was a well publicized pit bull.
Pit bull activist Cindy Marabito
Pit activist Cindy Marabito crafted a story alleging that Darla Napora was not killed by her pit bull, but had instead suffered a fatal fall from a ladder, and the pit bull was merely trying to wake her up. This story, with no justification or basis in fact, gained traction and was echoed and amplified by other online pit bull activists such as Melanie Coy.

The coroner's report, however, made it clear that Darla Napora was mauled to death in her home by her pit bull. There was no ladder. The ladder stories have since been removed without explanation.

While pit bull defenders continue to search for some scrap of evidence on which to blame the attack, there does not seem to be any real mystery about it. There is nothing to distinguish this particular attack from any of the other pit bull maulings that have occurred over the past 150 years, aside from the identity of the victim. Given the well documented tendency of pit bulls to attack their owners, it was simply a matter of time before some well known pit bull advocates were maimed or killed by their own animals.


Last month (Aug 2011), 3 different pit bull owners were killed by their own pets. More deaths will follow in future, as surely as day follows night, and some of those deaths will be innocent bystanders who never owned, nor wanted to own, a pit bull. Innocent family pets and beloved personal companions will continue to be killed by pit bulls.

If we can simply get across the point that pit bulls are lethal and unpredictable animals, even to some small fraction of the people who read this, we will have saved lives, and that is why we speak out. For more on this story, dogsbite.org has information here, and  Craven Desires has some good fact-checking  here and here.

Additional links below -

pacifica.patch.com: Pit Bull: 'She Fell Off a Ladder' is PR Spin
truecrimereport.com: Darla Napora, Pregnant Pit Bull Advocate, Mauled to Death By Her Pit Bull

13 comments:

  1. Thanks for that well-written article. It may be that many pit bulls have had spotless 'records' and lived out their entire lives as harmless and devoted pets. I am convinced, however, that if a large-scale statistical study could be commissioned, it would show that a statistically significant higher percentage of dogs of this breed are more prone to violent behavior than dogs of other breeds - even if one were to adjust for factors such as a difficult 'puppyhood' or what have you. Too many of these dogs are just too unpredictable, and one can never know which ones are going to snap one day. And a thought that haunts me from time to time is, if somebody I loved were being attacked by a pit bull, what (if anything) would I be able to do to stop it? I would not mind a bit if my municipality were to ban the ownership of pit bulls. Thank you again.

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  2. you're back!

    jake, outstanding editorial and nice synopsis of the attack aftermath. i really hate to speculate about the details of fatal attacks but this one is just so bizarre and disturbing that i can't help myself. i can't shake the feeling that napora is not somehow directly responsible for his wife's death. the macabre statements about the breed, forgiving gunner and burying him with darla, it's just too much. as vintage would say "you can't make this stuff up".

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  3. Dawn, I would have to agree. I found the husband's behavior strange and it reeks of guilt. Something is amiss here and hopefully it will all come out.

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  4. Darla and I grew up together in Yakima wa, we were best of buds through our high school days, and we lost contact some time ago. Though I am her lifelong friend thru life and now sadly thru afterlife.. I hope you got the facts 100% here, i have been trying to get down to the bottom if it myself. She just was too smart, to outspoken.

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  5. Jen - I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. We dug for all the facts we could find, having to weed out a lot of false information along the way. Certainly there are still unanswered questions, and if you do find something more about what happened, we would certainly welcome that information, regardless of the implications.

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  6. Most def. I appreciate your blog and did a quick search for that Cindy character, to bad for her blind uneducated eye, she has falsified her facts to benefit her image. Karma's a bitch though. I do agree how the husband reactions played out. I hope they have or are doing an extensive report.
    thank you for your words and wisdom
    Jen

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  7. Melaine Coy is running a kiss a Pit bull for a dollar scam at a PETCO

    http://www.examiner.com/animal-welfare-in-st-louis/melanie-coy-kiss-a-bull-for-buck-at-the-petco-cruising-for-pet-adoptions

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  8. As a dog-owner and dog-lover, I used to make excuses for pit bulls. However after my 9 year old golden retriever was nearly mauled to death in december by a pack of 4 of these vicious dogs, my thoughts have changed. The only reason I didn't get mauled is because my mastiff fought off three of them. I kicked and kicked and screamed and this dog didn't flinch. It had the expressionless look of a shark on it's face. For 4 minutes I watched in horror as this vicious animal mauled my arthritic dog. Normal dog breeds do not behave in this manner. Only when the owner came out and called the dog off did it stop. I don't advocate cruelty, but I believe that nobody has any business owning a breed which behaves in such a mechanical, reptilian manner. This breed was a mistake

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    Replies
    1. Above all allowing this breed as a PET animal was a mistake.

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  9. The final act of burying Darla, unborn fetus, and pit bull together was the frothy whipped cream frosting that topped this outrageous story. Then it was copied in the funeral arrangements of Nick Santino. I will forever shake my head at this lunacy, this inane worship of this most hideous dog breed.

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  10. What a sad group of Nutters the Pitbull crowd are, even on her obituary they wrote that she passed away in her own home. These freaks wont even admit she was murdered in cold blood by her own Pitbull. Here is the obituary:

    Darla Napora 32, beloved wife, sister, daughter and expecting mother, passed away in her home on Thursday, August 11th, 2011. Darla is survived by her loving husband, Greg Napora. Darla was born in Yakima, Washington and was the youngest of three daughters. She lived her first eighteen years there, and then moved to Seattle, Washington and then on to San Mateo where she started her career serving her friends in the community. She loved life simply and cherished those around her; she was an avid supporter of BADRAP which supports the Pitbull cause. She loved to travel and spend time with her friends; she enjoyed the outdoors and sports. One personal achievement was running in her 1st half marathon. Darla had a personality that would light up a room, vibrant and known by her ingenious eye shadow and outspokenness. She was a pillar of sanity to everyone else's insanity.

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  11. Her husbands response reminds me of a Columbo episode from long ago. Two dobermans and a silent signal. It was a case of murder by dog.

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  12. It was the ingenious eye shadow that precipitated the dog assault--also the fall from the ladder--and possibly the cause of her pregnancy.

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