Overview
- The boy, visiting a community garden in Essen’s Altenessen district with family on Friday, was bitten in the head by a dog that ran out of a garden plot.
- Paramedics treated the child at the scene and took him to a hospital, where he is receiving care for severe head injuries.
- The 29-year-old owner was in his garden hut during the attack and told officers he had been drinking, leading a doctor to take a blood sample.
- Municipal enforcement staff seized the dog and placed it in an animal shelter, with police dog handlers helping with the capture.
- Police opened a case on suspicion of negligent and dangerous bodily harm as they review how the attack unfolded and the owner’s control of the animal, described as an Antikdogge, a mastiff-type crossbreed developed in the 1990s.