Warning: This story contains graphic information about a dog attacking a person.
A man whose pitbull tore off part of a woman’s face will serve his sentence in the community after pleading guilty to criminal negligence causing bodily harm.
Gerald L. Pocha, 50, was in the shower on the morning of Aug. 19, 2024, when the two pitbulls in his yard in north Regina escaped.
They had done it before. The gate on the rental property didn’t close properly, so Pocha would try to keep it shut by putting bricks in front of it. But they got out again.
This time, as they roamed the neighbourhood, the pitbulls found a woman who was out walking her dog on Third Avenue, near Cameron Street. The woman started walking down an alley to try to get away.
The pitbulls started circling her, “like they were hunting her,” Crown prosecutor Jennifer Dann said during Pocha’s sentencing in Regina provincial court last month.
Then the dogs attacked. The smaller pitbull went after the woman’s dog.
The larger one bit at the woman until it was pulled away by Pocha and his partner at that time, who had yelled at him to get out of the shower after she saw the dogs were out. Pocha and his partner left the scene with the dogs.
The victim was severely injured but managed to hobble a short distance away and ask people for help. When police responded and followed the bloody trail back to the alley, officers found a “significant chunk” of what appeared to be a human ear, Dann said.
Officers later visited the woman in hospital to photograph her injuries, including a wound on her face that was about seven inches long and three to four inches wide.
“It was approximately from the top of the left side of her scalp, along her left eye, and her cheek was mostly missing,” Dann said. “Officers observed that they could see inside her mouth through the hole in her left cheek.”
The woman also had penetrating wounds on her neck and chest.
In her victim impact statement, read by Dann in court, the woman wrote that she still can’t hear very well and has painful scarring and nerve damage.
“I’m afraid to walk my dogs in mornings,” she wrote. “People do not want to be seen with me. I am fit to work but my right ear is partially chewed off.”
Police began investigating but couldn’t find the dogs right away. They distributed images from one neighbour’s surveillance camera and appealed to the public for help.
Police looking for dog owners shown in video after alleged attack
Two days after the attack, another neighbour called and said he had looked at his surveillance video, which had captured the entire incident. It included a clear picture of a man, which was circulated amongst Regina police officers, one of whom recognized Pocha, Dann said.
Police executed a search warrant on Aug. 29, 2024, and seized the dogs — which were ultimately destroyed. They also interviewed Pocha, who admitted the dogs were his and that they were a danger to the public.
When officers asked Pocha if the dogs had attacked a person before, he initially said no. But near the end of the interview, Pocha admitted that the dogs had attacked another woman “just weeks before,” Dann said.
That woman “did seek medical assistance,” Dann said, but she didn’t have further information about it and said charges were never laid in relation to that attack.
Dann argued that Pocha should serve a sentence of two and a half years in prison, followed by three years of probation. She said the court needs to send a message that animal attacks on people “won’t be tolerated” and there must be severe consequences.
Pocha’s lawyer Makenzie Bauer argued for a conditional sentence order of two years less a day, served in the community, and one year of probation.
She said Pocha “feels terrible for what happened.”
Bauer said the house Pocha was renting in north-central Regina was “very run down.” The doors didn’t lock and the gate didn’t stay closed.
She said Pocha is on the Saskatchewan Assured Income for Disability program, after suffering long-term back issues stemming from his career running a moving company.
He has struggled with fentanyl abuse, after losing two of his sons — one to a drug overdose and one who, “quite ironically,” was mauled by dogs and died, Bauer said.
Pocha, who is Métis, is originally from Prince Albert, but moved to Regina after a homicide happened in his home, causing him PTSD, anxiety and depression, Bauer said.
She said Pocha acknowledges he should have done more to protect the public from the dogs.
When Judge Noah Evanchuk asked him if there was anything he wanted to say about the dog attack, Pocha said, “I’m so sorry it happened.”
Evanchuk took a short break to consider the sentencing arguments, then returned and said he agreed that a conditional sentence was appropriate.
He said he took into consideration that Pocha’s criminal record is very dated (the last violent offence on it was from 1999) and that he had taken responsibility by pleading guilty.
Evanchuk imposed a conditional sentence of two years less a day, followed by one year of probation. Pocha will be under 24-hour house arrest for the first year, and then have a curfew of 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. for the second year.
He is not allowed to own, possess or take care of any dogs during the conditional sentence and probation term.
