Elderly Texas Air Force Veteran Killed While Protecting Wife from Vicious Pack of Dogs
On Friday afternoon, San Antonio locals Ramon Najera and his wife Juanita Najara, 74, were visiting the 2800 block of Depla Street to get some clothes tailored by a seamstress.
Ramon, an Air Force veteran, was on dialysis but wasn’t letting that keep him from going back to his job. He was about to return to work in security and needed his work clothes adjusted, but that fateful trip became his last — and was nearly his wife’s last, as well.
The person they were meeting wasn’t home, and it was as the couple returned to their car that at least two dogs escaped from the neighboring fenced yard and ran for them.
Juanita was almost back to the car but saw the dogs rush her husband and went to help, and they turned on her. According to a post by Juanita’s son, Carlos Gomez, Ramon then did everything within his power to save his wife, but lost his own life in the process.
A bystander tried to help by spraying the dogs with a hose and using a rake to try to get them off Ramon, who had fallen. The good Samaritan was also attacked and injured by the dogs, according to KSAT.
San Antonio firefighters arrived and three of them used pickaxes and pike poles to fight off the dogs, during which time the fire captain was also attacked and injured.
When the dogs were finally subdued, they and a third dog owned by the same person — 31-year-old Christian Alexander Moreno — were taken and euthanized that night.
“Words can not describe how I’m feeling right now,” Trevor Najera posted on Facebook on Monday. “I’m in complete shock. This past Friday, my grandparents were viciously attacked by a pack of dogs. My grandfather, the hero he is, saved my grandmother’s life by giving his for hers. This senseless preventable killing has rocked our family to the core.”
“My step dad was a strong man stronger than a few of us put together,” Ramon’s stepson Carlos Gomez wrote. “Even with having to go to dialysis you’d never know that he was getting this done unless he told you. He was getting ready to start back up at his security job which is the reason they were stopping at a seamstress. My step dad was having some work done on his uniform when they were viciously attacked by these dogs. I’m still trying to understand how this could happen.
“We are requesting your help in raising money to help cover the cost of funeral and memorial services for my Stepfather Ramon Najera. This tragedy and the passing of my Stepfather has hit us completely unexpectedly. Any excess money will be used to cover financial relief for his spouse my mother.”
Thanks to lots of generous donors, the family has raised over $20,000 of their original $10,000 goal to give Ramon a proper burial and help pay for Juanita’s medical costs.
Sadly, the incident was not the dogs’ first brush with the law, and neighbors had been concerned for some time and made multiple calls regarding them.
After Moreno got them back, he allegedly followed the conditions of the return, which included sterilization, tethering in the yard, and securing the dogs with harnesses — and yet, that clearly was not enough.
Moreno’s wife had also noticed the dogs becoming more and more aggressive and asked Moreno to return them to Animal Care Services, but he refused. According to the affidavit viewed by KSAT, she was “scared of the dogs since they were sterilized” and said they fought often amongst themselves, too.
Moreno was arrested and taken to Bexar County Jail. He faces two felony charges of attack by dangerous dog causing death and injury to an elderly [individual], and his bond totals $125,000.
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