Harold Phillips was walking home from the bus stop on Detroit’s west side when three dogs viciously attacked him in January.
The 35-year-old father of six died about a week later.
Now his wife Shauntaye Phillips is suing the dogs’ owners Roy and Trevina Phillips, Detroit Animal Care and Control (DACC), former Animal Control Director Mark Kumpf, interim Director Lori Sowle, two investigators, and the nonprofit that helps find homes for neglected dogs, Friends of Detroit Animal Care and Control.
The lawsuit suggests that attempts by the nonprofit and city to avoid euthanasia have created a dangerous environment for Detroiters. The no-kill model is “utterly ineffective, reckless, and deadly,” the lawsuit argues.
According to the lawsuit, the dogs that attacked Phillips have been a constant nuisance and were known to be dangerous. In fact, the dogs’ owners were sued in April 2023 for after several of their canines attacked a Detroit man.
In February 2021, Roy Goodman was charged with a misdemeanor for failing to keep an animal from being a nuisance or engaging in menacing behavior after two of his dogs bit a 5-year-old child he had been watching. He was fined $240.
Even though DACC deemed one of the dogs to be dangerous, the city returned the canine to the Goodmans, the lawsuit states.
In March 2021, Trevina Goodman was charged with a misdemeanor for having more than two animals, but she failed to show up for court so a warrant was issued for her arrest. She wasn’t arraigned until after Phillips’s death.
“Mr. Phillips was sadly no match for the pack mentality of the Goodmans’ dogs,” the lawsuit, filed by attorney Paul Huebner, states. “With their more than sufficient bite force, the Goodmans’ dogs tore the flesh from Mr. Phillips’ body focusing it would seem on the vulnerable inner upper extremity of Mr. Phillips’ right side — chewing a literal hole into his arm.”
Phillips, who was a rapper and business owner, was in a medically induced coma after the attack. One of his arms was amputated.
Detroit has a history of fatal dog attacks, which experts blame on irresponsible ownership and the city’s lack of resources to handle an abundance of neglected and stray canines, as Metro Times reported in a cover story in October 2019.
City officials stepped up enforcement after 9-year-old Emma Hernandez was fatally attacked by three undernourished pit bulls in August 2019. Detroit City Council strengthened its dangerous animal ordinance in February 2020 by adding a provision called “Emma’s Clause,” which requires DACC to investigate and evaluate all complaints about dangerous animals.
Detroit declined to comment for this story, citing active litigation. Metro Times couldn’t reach Friends of DACC for comment.
