Baldwin rallies for Remi

A hastily compiled Facebook page for a 2-year-old female pit bull who was shot in the jaw after escaping her yard and reportedly menacing an elderly couple has garnered considerable attention. Donations and expressions of support have been posted to the page from as far away as Brazil and the Philippines — as have allegations of fraud and charges of poor dog ownership. The page, found by logging on to Facebook.com and searching “justice for Remi,” was posted by the dog’s owner, Barbara Garrett, 54, who has lived in Baldwin for 20 years and says she is both gratified and alarmed by the attention.

Garrett, a four-time PTA president and mother of three who works in Oceanside, told the Herald that the incident took place around 10:30 a.m. on June 4. According to Garrett, she was preparing to take her dogs for a walk. She said she saw the dogs in the enclosed yard of her Pine Street home through an upstairs window, then went downstairs.

“If it was a minute between my seeing the dogs in the yard and getting to the door, that would be a lot,” Garrett recalled. But by the time she reached the ground floor, a scene she described as a “horror movie” was already unfolding.

According to Garrett, one of her dogs, Lola, who is notorious for her escapes, pushed open the gate to her front yard, and Remi and Lola wandered out into the street. When Garrett opened the door, she heard barking. She called her dogs, heard a “pop” and recognized the sound as a gunshot.

Garrett, whose grandfather was chief of the Freeport police for some 40 years and who grew up in what she called a “police community,” is familiar with firearms. “At first I thought Lola, our cairn terrier, was the one shot because she’s very yippy,” she recalled in a voice full of emotion. “But then Remi ran in with blood all over her legs. It was shocking. There were piles of blood all over the kitchen floor. A thousand things were going through my mind. I was nervous because I knew someone was outside with a gun.