An aggressive altercation erupted after an apparent disregard for park etiquette.
Living in a residential complex with pets necessitates often having to take energetic dogs out for a stroll. Mandy Davies takes her two dogs to the Rooisering Park off Albert Street almost every day at around 16:00. She arrives at the Kraalbessie Avenue entrance and unless there is the familiar face of a young boy accompanied by his mother, her two dogs wait on command before being let loose in the park.
On Youth Day, June 16, said young boy beckoned Chloe and Sally who duly accepted the invitation. Not on a leash, the enthusiastic dogs startled another young girl who was in the park and this drew the ire of a man sitting on a nearby bench. As Mandy moved past the swings, she claimed the man gave her an expletive-laced instruction to put her animals on a leash, something she refused with equal contempt.
Accepting that she was wrong to allow her dogs to roam without a leash, Mandy said she was happy to accept any fines for breaching the rules or for her dogs’ behaviour. Chloe, a seven-year-old spaniel, was defecating near the dinosaur-shaped climbing apparatus when the man got off the bench and motioned purposefully towards the dog. Thinking the man was going to kick Chloe, Mandy rushed over to intervene.
In the ensuing altercation, Mandy claimed the man struck her and pushed her to the ground, with the 58-year-old woman tumbling over the slide. Enraged, Mandy attempted to fight back but was repeatedly pushed to the floor. “I did try to hit him back but he was tall enough that he could keep me at arm’s length,” she recalled, describing her alleged assailant as being well-presented with short dark but greying hair, a few days’ stubble and sharp blue eyes.
The man was in the park with what Mandy relayed was a female companion and a young female child, the one scared by Chloe’s barking. The man’s companion separated the two, with the three moving to a lower part of the park while, oblivious, Chloe and Sally ran around chasing birds. Irate, Mandy admitted that she hurled several foul-mouthed insults at the man as he walked away.
The argument would reach its ugly point when Mandy encountered the man on a path exiting the park. Noticing the man had picked up a a stick, Mandy picked up one of her own and after stubbornly refusing to cede to the man, another altercation ensued. Mandy claimed the man struck her again and threw her out the way, against a nearby barrier fence. Mandy landed a blow on the man’s arm with her stick and he retaliated by flat-handing her several times against the side of the head, leaving her stricken on the grass.
Mandy taunted the man as he and the two females he was with left on foot. Disoriented, she gathered herself, loading her dogs into the car and while noticing them on the drive home, resisted the urge to continue the altercation. “I felt like I wanted to drive over him but didn’t only because the little girl was with him,” said Mandy. “He knew I was alone and that he would get away with it,” she fumed.
The dog owner has since opened a case of common assault with Honeydew police and has seen a doctor, who she claimed has diagnosed her with a burst ear drum.
Not content with an apology, Mandy will continue with the assault charge should the man be identified. Reiterating her awareness that dogs should be on a leash yet still seething, Mandy said, “I was wrong but he had no right to do what he did”.
