The victim is said to be 25-year-old Nikita Hampton. According to his father, he is going into surgery Saturday afternoon at Mt. Sinai Hospital for injuries sustained to his arm. He is expected to recover.
The attack happened at about 12:30 Saturday afternoon, but there are conflicting stories about how the dogs got loose.
The owner is insisting that they were provoked, but six pit bulls got out of the fenced in yard that they are kept in and attacked Hampton, who was walking past the home at the time.
Hampton's father said that he was coming back from the store when he saw the attack taking place.
"When I looked and saw it was him, he was so covered with blood, I didn't know what to do," said Shawn Taylor. "I was half-scared so I just picked up a brick and I hit one of the dogs. They started to charge me and luckily some good Samaritans jumped out of their cars and started helping me fight the dogs off."
"He was kicking the gate," said the dogs' owner Walter Fields. "To make a long story short, he provoked the dogs to attack him. Then the chain came off the gate when he kept kicking the gate and then the dog pushed the gate open after he kicked it a couple of times and they ran through."
Police have issued the dogs' owner several citations and animal control has been out, but it appears that the dogs were not taken away from the owner at this time, pending a formal investigation.
