Cops: Dog Owner Bit Jogger After Dog Attacked Her

A dog may have done the initial attacking, but a human was ultimately busted for biting. Alma Cadwalader, 19, was arrested after an incident Thursday in Anthony Chabot Regional Park in Oakland, Calif., with Cadwalader claiming self-defense and the alleged victim saying Cadwalader bit her forearm, USA Today reports. Per a notice from the local police, "a female jogger defended herself against a dog attack with pepper spray" and was later "accosted" by the dog's owner, ending with "the victim ... bitten by the suspect, causing significant injury." Per NBC Bay Area, police say not only did Cadwalader chomp down on the victim's arm—she also "tackled and punched the jogger multiple times." Cadwalader, however, arrested the next day, says the jogger, identified by the East Bay Times as Cyndi Stainner, shouldn't have pepper-sprayed her dog, who simply ran toward her.

"I think [Stainner] must have assumed incorrectly that the dogs were going to attack her," says Cadwalader's attorney, Emily Dahm. "The dogs did not attack her in any way, shape, or form. They didn't jump on her, they didn't bite her." Dahm adds that her client kept yelling at Stainner to stop, and that when they finally got into a tussle over the pepper spray, Stainner "grabbed my client by the hair, kneed her in the groin, and began attacking her." That's when Cadwalader bit Stainner in self-defense, Dahm says. Cadwalader was hit with charges of false imprisonment, battery, and robbery; the robbery charge arose from her allegedly swiping Stainner's pepper spray, KTVU reports. Police say Cadwalader doesn't have a previous arrest record, per the Mercury News.Records show she's out of jail on bail. (A woman bit by a puppy died several weeks later.)