Felon suspected of gun threat after near-dog attack in troubled Prosser neighborhood
Some Benton County neighbors are still dealing with aggressive dogs and threats from the owners, despite four years of complaints to police and a multi-million dollar settlement.
When Benton County settled a $1.6 million claim last December related to a 2022 attack by a pack of dogs, attorneys for the family told the Herald that neighbors were concerned about speaking out because there were still aggressive dogs on the property and at least one person making threats.
Monday night the sheriff’s office was back at the Old Inland Empire Home near Prosser, after another call about aggressive dogs and a man threatening to shoot his neighbors.
When deputies arrived, they found the man was a felon and could not legally be in possession of guns. After serving a search warrant, several firearms were found and the dog owner was arrested. But the aggressive dog was already gone.
Wesley Adam McCoy, 37, was arrested on suspicion of four counts of being a felon in possession of a gun and one count of felony harassment.
History of aggressive dogs
It was the same house where the pack of pit bulls came from that attacked Christin Gregerson and her then 15-year-old son Hunter in April 2022.
The mother and teen were both left with lifelong injuries. Doctors initially thought Christin’s arm would have to be amputated because the damage was so severe.
Dozens of police reports from 2019 to 2023 show neighbors called police and code enforcement over and over about the dangerous dogs getting loose and trying to attack people and animals, including livestock. The same neighbor who called the police this week had a small dog killed.
Multiple neighbors have also called the police about dogs from the property attacking them while they were walking in the area or on their own property.
The Gregersons were in their front yard when a pack of seven pit bulls attacked. A neighbor had to grab a shovel to fight them off.
The neighbor who was threatened this week had previously told deputies the attacks became so frequent that he began carrying a gun in his orchard for protection. Their small dog was killed the same day the Gregersons were attacked.
The events this week played out in a familiar way for the people living nearby.
New dogs, new threats
The neighbor and an employee making a delivery were on his property when a light brown pit bull charged aggressively toward them. The neighbor told deputies he fired a shot from a .22 caliber rifle into ground to scare the dog, but it came back moments later, charging them again.
Then McCoy came to the fence line with a gun, according to court documents. He allegedly told the neighbor and his employee “if they shot his dog, he was going to shoot back.”
The neighbor called the sheriff’s office. He told deputies there was a history at the property that gave him concern for his safety.
By the time deputies arrived and spoke to McCoy, his girlfriend already had taken the dog off the property. Both the threats and hiding dogs are nothing new, say the neighbors.
Court documents previously obtained by the Herald show that after attacks or near misses, various residents would allegedly coordinate to hide the dogs before code enforcement or deputies could arrive to seize them.
It’s unclear how long McCoy has lived on the property, but according to documents he was living in one of the rundown campers that code enforcement officials have previously ordered property owner Donna Ziegler to remove. During a court appearance this week, McCoy claimed he was Ziegler’s caretaker.
Ziegler has been cited several times by code enforcement employees and has been issued dangerous dog declarations.
The dogs that attacked the Gregersons were owned by Ziegler’s daughter Melanie Daniels, and Daniels’ boyfriend Darryl Wynn, both of whom died before they could face charges for the dog attack.
Previous police reports mention several other people living on the property in camper trailers in various states of disrepair, with about a half dozen being arrested on warrants and for stolen property when one search warrant was previously served.
The documents also repeatedly mention Daniels’ grandson and other residents misleading police and clashing with neighbors.
Despite most of the dogs eventually being taken after the attack and several other close calls, attorneys wrote that dangerous dogs remained on the property. When Ziegler was asked about some of the dogs still there, she allegedly told deputies that they were kept in kennels at the back of the property because they were too aggressive.
The dog that nearly attacked neighbors this week appears to be new to the property.
Its description does not match photos of the remaining dogs in court documents, which show two pit bull mixes and a German Shepherd.
Ziegler has been ordered not to have more than four animals after previous hoarding complaints. It’s unclear how many are now on the property.
When deputies asked McCoy about the gun he allegedly pulled on the neighbor, he at first told them it was a rock, then a BB gun pistol, according to court documents.
Deputies were unable to locate a BB gun near the trailer McCoy said he was staying in. The deputies requested a search warrant and found a 9mm handgun in plain sight in the trailer on top of a makeshift woodstove.
They also found three rifles ranging in caliber from a .22 long rifle, to a .270 and a 30-30 rifle, as well as 12 gauge shotgun shells and a muzzle loaded rifle, said the documents.
McCoy told deputies he was not allowed to have firearms after a domestic violence conviction, according to the court documents.
Deputies ran a background check and found that he also had a felony conviction for second-degree theft and a previous conviction for unlawful possession of a firearms.
Court records show McCoy has a lengthy history of drug and theft charges in Benton and Yakima counties.
He remained booked in the Benton County jail Friday with bail set at $25,000.
This story was originally published July 6, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
