Nine minutes before he applauded city staff for securing $54.6 million in state appropriations at the beginning of today’s City Council meeting, Palm Coast City Council member Ed Danko compared employees to “Gestapo agents” in reference to an animal control case involving a pit bull attack and a dog’s death earlier this month.
Just after the council meeting in late morning Danko walked back the statement, saying “maybe ‘Gestapo’ was a little over the top, but I’m infuriated by this. It’s not right.” Danko at the meeting and during an interview had been incensed by allegations that an animal control officer had enjoined neighborhood residents from discussing the case of the dog attack among themselves, a claim the city calls false, but is still investigating–separately from the dog case, which is closed.
If true, it would be highly unusual–and inappropriate–for government employees, including police, to seek to control what information neighbors choose to share with each other.
The case centers on a June 3 incident on Weymouth Lane where 71-year-old Carole Brasfield and her chihuahua dog called Rookie were attacked by 70-year-old Deborah Sefcik’s dog called Blu. Blu is alternately referred to in city documents as either a pitbull mix or a bulldog. It was Blu’s second documented attack in 13 months. Blu’s owner was let off with a surprisingly light civil citation after the first attack, despite a documented injury to its victim.
In a signed affidavit Brasfield wrote shortly after the attack, she said she had been walking Rookie as she has every day since she got the rescue dog over a year ago, when she crossed paths with Sefcik. Sefcik told her that Blu was in the brush in an undeveloped lot, but that he was muzzled. (Sefcik was cited last year for losing control of the dog in that earlier attack. Palm Coast regulations require dogs to be leashed at all times when off their property.)
Seconds later, Blu bounded out of the woods, without muzzle, and charged Brasfield and her dog, knocking both down as Brasfield, who is a very slight woman, attempted to shield Rookie from the very large Blu.
“I lost control of holding my dog because I was dazed and in extreme pain,” Brasfield said. “I tried getting up but he had Rookie in his mouth, shakening him–we both tried to free Rookie with no luck. I climbed on the back of him but he was focused on my Rookie.” Blue kept mangling Rookie despite passers-by in an SUV stopping to help and other neighbors coming out to do the same. By the time Blu was under control again, Rookie was lifeless, he and his owner a bloody mess. Brasfield suffered a bite to her wrist.
In an interview today, Brasfield described how, dazed and in shock, she cradled Rookie, walked back to her porch through screams and yells she could vaguely hear in the background, sat on her porch, and called 911.
Sefcik in a brief statement said Blu had been leashed and muzzled until she lost control when Blu saw a rabbit in the woods and darted after it.
Brasfield’s affidavit makes no mention of the way Burton interacted with her. But that was the heart of her comments as she spoke to the council this morning, struggling through emotions.
“The Palm Coast Animal Control came but did not introduce herself. She did not interview me. She did not take pictures of my dog. She came to our house the next day to pick up a witness statement from me,” Brasfield said, her voice shaking. (By then, however, the Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy Trevor Yeoman had already taken pictures of the dogs, according to an incident report.)
“The animal control person argued with me, saying the pitbull had a muzzle on and I said he did not, I was up close and personal with his dog,” Brasfield continued. “I felt like something was not right. I talked with the owners of the last dog attack that [Blu] attacked. I told the animal control what I did, and she basically told me I should not be talking to [that dog’s] owner. And then she told me not to talk to my neighbors about this because they’re lying. She told me the first attack did not count. She told me the dog had more chances. This dog could have killed a child.”
There appears to have been some confusion in the neighborhood over Blu’s record, such as the neighborhood “word-of-mouth” belief, as Brasfield describe dit, that Blu was not supposed to be walking off his property. That’s not the case.
Just over a year ago, on May 19, 2022, Blu was the subject of a city investigation after the dog attacked a small corgi called Jojo, again on Weymouth Lane. Sefcik confirmed to a city animal control officer that she lost control of Blue, who rushed Jojo and attacked.
“The aggressor dog was roughly 120 lbs., my own weight,” Jojo’s owner, Jonathan Fairbanks, said, describing how he and his wife had been on an early evening stroll with Jojo and had stopped to chat with Sefcik about her dog. All seemed calm until Blu suddenly lunged. “Its owner and me [were] both on the ground desperately trying to restrain it.”
“My dog Blu is very big and powerful,” Sefcik wrote in a statement that was made part of the city’s investigation. “He saw the little dog on a leash and in an instant he bolted towards the dog, ripping the leash from my hands. He pounced on the little dog. It was a horror show. The people are screaming, the dog is screaming, Blu is growling loud and I’m yelling at Blu. Blu has never done this before. He is a rescue so I have no idea what happened the first 2 years of his life. He will be muzzled when going off property from now on.”
By the dog’s owner’s own description, Blu was out of control.
Jojo suffered no apparent puncture wounds, but the city animal control’s claim to Brasfield that it had not been inured is incorrect. The dog suffered “definitely edema and swelling over the back and rib cage,” according to a veterinarian’s report about Jojo following the attack. “The patient got very lucky due to wearing a harness at the time of the attack and being very slightly overweight.”
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Because the injury was limited, Sefcik was cited for failing to control her dog. Blu was not deemed dangerous by the city at that point. In that sense, the animal control officer was right when she told Brasfield that Blu had more chances. Whether it should have had those additional chances is a different issue.
According to the city’s animal control investigation documents, Blue after the June 3 attack was ordered quarantined the same day for 11 days, pending the city’s investigation outcome, which meant Blu was not allowed off its owner’s property except in cases of emergency veterinary needs. But the day of the attack, Sefcik was fully aware of the severity of the incident and told Shelley Burton, the city’s animal control officer that “she was going to do the right thing in having him euthanized on her own terms.” The dog was euthanized on June 15.
By then, the city had just completed its investigation and had “determined that there is sufficient cause to classify Blu as a dangerous dog.”
Meanwhile, Brasfield had phone and in-person interactions with Burton. Brasfield’s red flags went up, she said, when Burton insisted that Blu had been muzzled, and that Blu was personable. When Brasfield referred to Blu’s attack last year and of her conversations with last year’s victim, she said Burton told her, “you shouldn’t be talking to her, and you shouldn’t be talking to your neighbors, either, because they’re lying. She said that to me on the phone. I know it’s hearsay but it took me aback.”
There may have been a level of exaggeration on all sides–Burton wishing the inaccuracies about the 2022 case weren’t being turned to fact, and maybe overstating the case (the way Danko overstated his accusation), and Brasfield interpreting that as prohibitions on talking with neighbors about it all.
In a statement this morning, Brittany Kershaw, the city’s communications director, said: “I made contact with Animal Control, and it is a false statement to say that the Animal Control Officer encouraged the resident not to speak with neighbors. That is not common protocol either. In fact, the residents were encouraged to speak with their neighbors in order to obtain as many witness statements as possible. It is the protocol/policy of Animal Control to receive and include as many witness statements/sworn affidavits as possible during these types of investigations.”
Burton completed a lengthy report in the aftermath of the dog attack. On the evening of the attack, she wrote, “I hand served Carole a sworn statement to complete. I informed Carole I would make contact with her tomorrow and collect information.” Burton documented several subsequent interactions with the Brasfields, none suggesting anything particularly amiss, though the Brasfield appeared put off by the possibility that their deceased dog may have had to be tested for rabies, since it may have bitten Sefcik. On June 4 the Brasfield told her they were consulting an attorney.
Testing was ruled out on June 5. That day, the owner of the dog subjected to Blu’s attack in 2022 called Burton, upset that Blu wasn’t being taken away. Burton received further claims of incidents involving Blu, this one from a W-Section resident who described the dog chasing him while he was on a motorcycle.
Danko met with Code Enforcement Manager Barbara Grossman on June 9, following which Grossman contacted the Brasfields to set up a meeting with neighbors and collect affidavits.
City Manager Denise Bevan told Danko at the end of today’s meeting that the city’s interactions with residents are being examined. “We do take that very seriously and we are looking at how we approach our citizens every day,” Bevan said. “It’s part of our mission statement that our citizens are a priority. Now, I would note that I appreciate the bravery of the resident this morning for coming in and sharing this with city council. But this is an operational standpoint and we’re in the investigative stage of learning more of how protocols were utilized and being very sympathetic of how emotionally charged that day was.”
Danko said he met with more than a dozen residents in the aftermath of the incident (he represents that district) and heard the same accounts from the residents. “So we really do need to look into this because this is no way to treat one of our citizens. It just isn’t,” he said.
“This has had our full attention and we appreciate your diligence out in the neighborhood and working with residents to get their side of the story,” Bevan told Danko. “We also have another side of the story that we want to be diligent in on how our staff approaches these matters.”
Brasfield had been confused and upset that the investigation had closed, considering her interactions with Burton, but was unaware that the dangerous dog investigation was separate from the internal matter of employee relations with residents.
“None of this should have happened in the first place. They should have addressed this dog issue before it even happened,” Brasfield said, at times breaking down during a phone interview. She spoke of Rookie as a life-saver. “This little dog changed my life,” she said. “I have heart problems. I had been seeing my cardiologist every three to four months, and when I got this little dog, the last appointment I had, the cardiologist said, your heart is doing great, we’re going to put you on a yearly plan.”
The attack, she said, ruined her life, and left her wondering how many other dogs with prior records of red-flag attacks are being allowed to go on, unrestricted.
