OAKLAND — The Alameda County District Attorney’s Office this week unexpectedly dropped its case against a man charged in the 2024 fatal mauling of his good friend by three, 100-pound dogs.
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Deputy District Attorney Michiye Vella cited a “lack of sufficient evidence” in asking a judge on Monday to dismiss the case against the dogs’ owner, Brendan Burke, according to court documents. The move, which the judge approved, came the same day that Burke had been expected to stand trial on a single felony count of failing to control animals killing a human.
Killed in the mauling was Robert Holguin, 53, one of Burke’s close friends and someone who had been periodically staying at the East Oakland property where he died.
On Friday, Holguin’s brother said simply: “If this was your family member that was killed by the same situation, how would you feel?”
“What would you want done? What would you expect to have happen?” said Alexander Holguin, a former Bay Area resident who now lives out of state. He remembered his brother as a “God-fearing street preacher,” who had “a very strong Christian faith, never gave up, regardless of the struggles he had.”
Attempts by this newspaper to reach Burke were not successful.
In December, a judge found that prosecutors had enough evidence to send the case to trial. The bar to prove those claims at the preliminary hearing, however, is lower than what prosecutors would have faced before a jury. This week, Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson defended the decision to drop the case.
“Although the loss of Mr. Holguin is a tragic event that leaves us all saddened, upon careful evaluation of the facts and the law, we cannot prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Jones Dickson said.
The dismissal represented an abrupt end to a case with little recent precedent in Alameda County. When the case was charge, Oakland animal officials said it was the first fatal dog mauling in decades.
Prosecutors claimed Burke was to blame for allowing three of his dogs — each of them 100 pounds and half-Cane Corso, half-Napoleon Mastiff — to escape from the backyard of his Fruitvale District home.
Gary J. Silva, 69, recounts the fatal scene where three mixed Cane Corso and Neapolitan Mastiff dogs mauled a friend in the driveway of the 1600 block of 36th Avenue in Oakland, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. Brendan Burke’s long-time friend, Robert Holguin, was killed by Burke’s dogs, who escaped the backyard gate last Sunday. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
The attack came with little warning, according to Gary Silva, the only witness to the mauling on Sept. 1, 2024.
While sitting in Burke’s front driveway that day, Holguin suddenly stopped talking and uttered four words: “The dogs are out.” At that moment, the two men ran for safety — Holguin jumping into his SUV in the driveway and Silva leaping onto a banister along the front porch.
Silva later testified in court that he first tried to beat the dogs away from him with a plastic coat hangar, prompting the dogs to retreat toward Holguin’s SUV. Silva then ran across the street to warn a woman and her two children to run.
Then, for some unknown reason, Holguin got out of the SUV and said “I got it,” Silva recalled. Moments later, Holguin began screaming as the dogs — grabbing him around his legs and torso — dragged him toward the back of the driveway, Silva testified.
The three dogs relented only when Silva beat them away with a broom handle, he said. At that point, a city animal control officer, Julian Taizan, arrived and kept the dogs at bay behind the back fence.
Holguin, who had been severely bitten and whose scalp had been ripped off, was pronounced dead outside the home located at 1609 36th Ave., according to court testimony.
The scene left Silva visibly shaken in an interview with this news organization days after the attack.
“He started screaming ‘They got me! They got me! Help me!’ ” Silva recalled. Standing just feet from where his friend died, Silva added: “I never want to see it again. It was terrible.”
The three dogs were seized by Oakland Animal Services and euthanized. Later that day, when Taizan told Burke the three dogs would need to be killed, Burke simply said “good,” the officer testified.
Court testimony later revealed that Burke previously tried to give away the dogs, because they were “a problem,” and “unhandleable,” Taizan said. Burke’s attempts failed, however, when the entity Burke contacted stopped responding to him, the officer testified.
Silva also testified that he accompanied Burke “several” times on trips to have the dogs euthanized. The cost of the procedure proved to be a limiting factor, Silva said, and Burke returned each time to his house with the dogs.
“He couldn’t handle them,” Silva testified. “He wanted to get rid of them.”
Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at [email protected].