Veda "Pat" Allen was certainly shocked, even disgusted, by what happened to Phoenix, the pit bull puppy doused with gasoline and then set on fire in Southwest Baltimore last month.
But the aftermath shocked her more, as people in the city and around the country shed tears, signed petitions, raged on blogs and raised more than $26,000 to find the dog's killers.
When her 22-year-old son was shot in the head in 1992 in what city police said was a motiveless crime, she wonders, where were these people with their outrage, their tears, their checks?
Over the past few weeks, as some people's hearts broke for the burned dog, and as they reached for their wallets to drive the Phoenix Reward Fund ever higher, others wondered just what was going on - particularly in a city where people die violently on almost a daily basis.
How could people feel so much for an animal, when they greet most deaths in town with a collective shrug of indifference?
"I think it's very disheartening when a dog's life is more valued than that of a human," says Allen, who still lives in the crime-ridden Northwest Baltimore neighborhood where her son died and leads a victims group called Survivors Against Violence Everywhere. "Twenty-six thousand dollars to find out who murdered a dog? Where are our priorities?"Daniel Buccino, a professor of psychotherapy at Johns Hopkins Hospital, thinks the sheer amount of crime in Baltimore, which has one of the nation's highest homicide rates, contributes to the gross disparity in reactions to the Phoenix case and other killings. People have become emotionally deadened to news of shootings, gang violence, young people killing each other, he says.
"But sometimes, when a dog is burned, or a child is killed ... some collective outrage is stirred," Buccino said.
It's not just Baltimore that feels so strongly about its animals. The nation was transfixed years ago after a California man flung a fluffy dog to its death in a road rage incident. And by Michael Vick's dog abuse, which included shooting, hanging and electrocuting pit bulls.
Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter Inc. is managing the Phoenix Reward Fund. BARCS Program Manager Debby Rahl isn't sure exactly how many people contributed, but she knows the organization is sending out more than 500 thank-you letters, so there were at least that many checks written. Another $12,000 was donated in Phoenix's name to the group's Franky Fund for abused animals.
