Great-grandmother, 85, attacked by dog unable to tell her side of story in Clayton County court

Tom Jones
·2 min read
2

A county prosecutor admits his office dropped the ball and didn’t tell an elderly dog bite victim the dog’s owner was going before a judge.

Earnestine Shaw said the mauling changed her life and a judge needed to hear what she had to say before doling out punishment.

“It really hurt me because my whole life is changed,” she told Channel 2′s Tom Jones.

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The 85-year-old great-grandmother doesn’t know what hurts the most -- the pain from her neighbor’s dog mauling her in October 2020 in Clayton County...

“It was very frightening,” she explained.

Or the pain she felt after she learned the dog’s owner went to court for the attack and she wasn’t there.

“I was not notified. We would have been there,” she insisted.

County prosecutor Kenneth Green said his office dropped the ball. He said he didn’t know why Shaw wasn’t notified.

“I just want justice because my life has changed,” Shaw said.

Shaw was walking in her yard on Carnes Estate Drive when the dog attacked, going for her throat.

“Instinct told me to do this,” she said, putting her hand over her throat to protect it from the dog’s teeth.

Shaw suffered bites all over her body. She was in the hospital for six days after one of her wounds became infected. She has drop foot, where she drags her foot from nerve damage.

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Shaw was waiting for the dog’s owner to go to court on vicious dog and dog at large citations. Then her daughter learned the owner’s court date was in back March.

Patrice Shaw got in touch with prosecutor Green.

“He said, ‘Oh my God. We really dropped the ball,” she recalled.

Green told Jones he had to dismiss the vicious dog charge and the dog’s owner only got a $100 fine because no witnesses were there.

Shaw said she couldn’t tell her story in court. But she is telling it now.

“Because I want people to know exactly what happened,” she said.

Green told Channel 2 Action News this happened during COVID-19, he was juggling two jobs, and the officer who investigated left the department.

Shaw said still, she should have been notified. She told Jones she hadn’t seen the dog since then.

Jones knocked on the neighbor’s door to get their side of the story, but no one answered.

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