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ANIMAL WATCH - A Texas babysitter, Rosa Rodriguez, 36, in San Antonio (Bexar County), TX, was charged with the death of a 1-1/2-year-old baby boy, Jiryiah Johnson, while he was at her home with her 13-year-old daughter and her three Pit Bulls, which broke through a door and brutally attacked the defenseless child on December 7, 2024.
A Medical Examiner confirmed that the boy was mauled to death, and the vicious dog attack was the cause of his death.
The three Pit Bulls were photographed being taken from the property at Spruce Ridge Drive, by News4, and the gruesome scene was described by officers as looking like a bloody tug-of-war took place with the child’s body torn apart by the dogs.
(See: 2024 Pit Bull Attacks: Owner Fights to Save Dogs After Fatal Mauling posted January 06, 2025 -CityWatchLA.com)
LAWSUITS FILED
A Wall Street firm that owns the property where the attack occurred has now been hit with a wrongful-death lawsuit over the mauling that killed the 16-month-old boy in 2024,” the San Antonio Express News reported on May 21, 2025.
The parents of Jiryiah Johnson (above) have sued New York asset management firm Blackstone Inc..and related companies. for more than $1 million over the gruesome attack, according to the report.
“Blackstone, Inc., is one of the largest owners of single-family rental homes in the country,” the report states, and is identified in the complaint as the “owner-in-fact” of the house where Jiryiah was attacked, in the 9700 block of Spruce Ridge Drive.”
ADDITIONAL DEFENDANT – BABYSITTER
Heather Rodriquez, who was asked to watch the boy but allegedly left him in the care of her 13-year-old daughter after being called in to work, was also named. The teen reportedly had the child on her lap while she played video games in an upstairs bedroom when the three dogs broke in and attacked.
“This is obviously a tragic situation,” said San Antonio lawyer Steve Dummitt, who represents Jiryiah’s parents — Erika Castro and Julian Johnson. “My clients are looking for answers to try to find some peace and to try to find a little bit of closure.”
(In December 2024, Rodriquez was indicted on felony counts of child abandonment/endangerment and recklessly causing bodily injury to a child.)
Related: Grand jury indicts Converse woman in dog mauling that killed toddler
Court records show she was in the process of being released on $250,000 bail before she was served with a warrant for her arrest on the charge of attack by a dog that resulted in death, a second-degree felony that carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Bail has been set at $200,000 on that charge.
A Bexar County Sheriff’s Office representative says Rodriquez has been in jail since her arrest in October.
Christopher Ramos, her defense lawyer, reportedly did not respond to a request for comment by San Antonio Expressand neither did a Blackstone representative. None of the defendants have been served, according to the report.
Castro and Johnson filed the lawsuit May 13, 2023, in state District Court in San Antonio, the report states.
In the suit, it is alleged that the dogs escaped from their room on Oct. 7 “having previously chewed through the door and were able to break it open, and attacked and mauled Jiryiah.”
He was taken by ambulance to Brooke Army Medical Center, where he underwent surgery for his injuries but died that evening.
Rodriquez rented the Spruce Ridge home that’s “owned by a complex network of corporate entities that funnel back to Defendant Blackstone Inc.,” the suit says.
“Blackstone owns about 63,000 single-family homes and has more than $1 trillion in assets under management,” according to Express News.
DID THE CORPORATION KNOW ABOUT THE PIT BULLS?
The suit alleges that the “Blackstone entities knew or should have known of the dangerous dogs residing on their property that had eaten through the doors and that posed a danger to the minor children living in the house and to the public.”
The plaintiffs seek punitive damages against Blackstone entities and Rodriquez for their “grossly negligent conduct that proximately cause the death of Jiryiah,” according to the report. (See entire Express News report.)
See: CITYWATCHLA.COM: report: 2024 Pit Bull Attacks: Owner Fights to Save Dogs After Fatal Mauling ( Published: January 06, 2025).
This story was reported by CityWatchLA in 2024, and it was called, “one of the most shocking media reports on what seem to be some of the most savage Pit Bull attacks reported.”
The above case (which had not yet been filed) described the defendant’s actions as follows, “one owner was more concerned about saving her Pit Bull after it had just killed a toddler she was babysitting, than the trauma to the baby’s family and her 13-year-old daughter, who was home alone with the child when the deadly attack occurred.”
Rodriguez testified from the Bexar County jail via Zoom to try to save her dogs, according to the report. All three Pit Bulls were euthanized by order of the court.
PIT BULLS/DOG ATTACKS AFFECT US ALL
The United States of America is one of the strongest nations in the world, but we are cowering under the rule of multi-million-dollar non-profit animal organizations that block passage of Breed Specific Legislation (BSL) to stop a problem that is growing nationwide—dog fighting and dangerous dogs (mainly Pit Bulls) in communities, and we need to ask “why?”
Freedom does not mean the right to deliberately harm or threaten another, but the nation’s lax laws on controlling dangerous dogs keep communities living in fear and result in increasing mauling and killing, often without penalty.
This lawsuit may have a chilling effect on statutes that deny landlords, Home Owners’ Associations, cities or states the right to pass and enforce breed specific legislation (BSL), and we need to watch who is opposing this.
There is, specifically, a movement by powerful, wealthy animal organizations, to not allow stakeholders/residents the right to prohibit Pit Bulls or other aggressive-breed dogs in housing, and, it is about time that decision is made by those who pay rent and taxes and live and raise children in the community, not by outside interests.
(Phyllis M. Daugherty is a former Los Angeles City employee, an animal activist and a contributor to CityWatch.)
