Left: Mario Alberto Mendoza Pena (Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office). Right: Guadalupe Carreon (Aransas County Sheriff’s Office). Inset: Lewis Flores (GoFundMe).
Two people in Texas have been arrested after a pack of five dogs allegedly attacked and mauled a 40-year-old man to death last week.
Guadalupe Carreon and Mario Alberto Mendoza Pena were both taken into custody and charged with attack by dog resulting in death in the gruesome death of Lewis Flores, authorities confirmed to Law&Crime. Attack by dog resulting in death is a second-degree felony punishable by a maximum sentence of up to 20 years in a state correctional facility.
According to a press release from the Aransas County Sheriff’s Office, deputies responded at about 5 a.m. on June 20 to an emergency call regarding a report of a man requesting assistance at a location in the 1000 block of San Antonio Street. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders said they found a man — later identified as Flores — who was “on the ground being attacked by several dogs” several blocks away from where the incident was originally reported to be taking place.
When one of the deputies intervened to stop the attack, the animals “turned their aggression on the officer who fired and believes he struck one of the dogs,” the release states. Following the firearm discharging, the animals all fled from the area and emergency responders began to perform CPR on the victim. Animal Control agents were dispatched to the scene. The victim eventually ended up near the corner of Corpus Christi Street and Monkey Road, blocks away from where the incident allegedly started.
Emergency Medical Services personnel transported Flores to the emergency room of Bay Area Hospital while law enforcement officers processed the scene and collected his belongings, the Aransas County Sheriff’s Office said. Meanwhile, Animal Control was able to locate some of the animals who allegedly attacked Flores and detained them with warrants.
Flores succumbed to his injuries a short while after arriving at the hospital and was pronounced dead, the sheriff’s statement said.
According to a report from Corpus Christi, Texas ABC affiliate KIII, Flores was attacked by three adult dogs and two puppies, all of which were eventually taken into custody by Animal Control. Aransas County Sheriff Bill Mills reportedly told KIII that Carreon was taken into custody at about 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.
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Officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection on June 22 took Mendoza Pena into custody. Corpus Christi NBC affiliate KRIS-TV reported that the federal agents recognized Mendoza Pena from an active arrest warrant after he drove over the Hidalgo International Bridge from Mexico and pulled him over.
Carreon was processed and booked into the Aransas County Jail while Mendoza Pena was booked into the Hidalgo County Jail and is currently awaiting extradition back to Aransas County.
A GoFundMe page set up for Flores’ funeral and memorial costs — which had raised $6,900 as of Monday evening — said that his family has had to endure “indescribable” emotional trauma in the wake of his death.
“It’s not enough to say Lewis had a warrior’s heart,” the fundraising page said. “He loved to make people laugh and he did that well. Being a big kid himself, Lewis loved everything about being the fun uncle and most importantly, he loved his family deeply.”
The person who made the initial 911 call, Adrian Arispe, spoke to KIII about the incident, saying he heard someone screaming for help at around 5 a.m. on the morning of the attack and went out to check on the situation, only to come across a harrowing scene.
“He’s just laying there a face down, naked, all torn up like a shark ate him. He had his shoes, socks, shirt ripped,” he said.
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