A woman was attacked by a dog and then the dog's walker while she was on a jog last week, according to police. But the dog walker's lawyer is claiming that she only acted in self-defense and the jogger pepper sprayed the dogs prematurely.
The jogger was running at 10:23 a.m. PST Thursday when a dog attacked her and then she used pepper spray on the dogs, police reported. Following the attack from the dog, the dog's walker allegedly attacked the jogger as well, while she was on the Goldenrod Trail in Oakland, according to police.
At the time of the attack, the jogger was between the Chabot Equestrian Center and the Oakland City Stables at the Anthony Chabot Regional Park, according to police. During the alleged attack it wasn't the dog that bit the jogger but the dog walker who allegedly bit the jogger and left a mark on her. Photos shared by the East Bay Regional Park District Police Department show the bite on the jogger's arm.
The alleged physical altercation between the dog walker and the jogger caused "significant injury," according to authorities. The owner allegedly tackled the jogger and punched her, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
The victim of the bite was treated at the scene for her injuries, the Chronicle reported. The suspect, 19-year-old Alma Cadwalader, of Oakland, allegedly had two dogs with her at the time of the attack but it was unclear at the scene which dog was the one that allegedly attacked the jogger in the first place. But the police told the Chronicle that there was no canine to human bite, only a "human to human" bite.
A warrant was issued for Cadwalader's arrest Friday by an Alameda County Judge and the officers from the East Bay Regional Park District Police Department made the arrest for the alleged attack. According to police, Cadwalader was interviewed by investigators following her arrest and then she was booked at Santa Rita Jail. No other suspected are involved in the case at the moment, according to police.
Cadwalader is a dog-walker and was wrongly accused in the case her attorney Emily Dahm said at a press conference. The attorney said that Cadwalader bit the jogger in self-defense and that the dogs did not attack the jogger before she started to use her pepper spray, the East Bay Times reported. Cadwalader's attorney said she pleaded with the jogger to stop spraying the dogs with pepper spray and when she didn't she tried to grab the spray from her, which lead to the altercation. Dahm said Cadwalader bit the jogger to get her to release her hair, according to the East Bay Times.
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