By JAMIE SCHRAM, MATTHEW NESTEL and LUKAS I. ALPERT
June 21, 2008
Two men rumbled at a Brooklyn dog run in a fight over their beloved pooches - ending when one whipped a water bottle into the other's face, breaking his nose, cops said yesterday.
The heated canine clash erupted on June 13 at 10 a.m. at the Manhattan Beach dog run.
Ira Levine's bull mastiff, Max, tried to take some water that Sergey Uzilov was squirting from a bottle so his boxer, Lola, could drink.
Levine, 66, of Sheepshead Bay, and Uzilov, 55, of Midwood, had almost come to blows once before when their dogs fought, so the exchange escalated quickly.
"He has a water bottle, and he's giving his dog some water and some of the other dogs," Levine said.
"My dog is thinking, 'Where's my water?' and [Uzilov] yelled, 'Get away! Get away!' " said Levine, who was also walking his other dog, a French mastiff named Jake.
"I grabbed a hold of my dog, and I said to him, 'You're a real a- -hole. He's just a dog. He doesn't know,' " Levine said.
Levine, a retired police officer, said Uzilov shot back, "Get your dogs out of here! You don't belong in here!"
"We're yelling back and forth at each other. I lean over - I have my gun on me at all times - I don't want to do something and get really pissed off," Levine said.
"The bottle of water that he is giving to his dogs, he throws at me from 10 feet away. I couldn't react fast enough."
As the bottle bounced off the ridge of Levine's left eye, others quickly intervened, and cops were called.
Police gave Uzilov a summons for disorderly conduct. But when Levine woke up the next day in pain with two black eyes, he went to the hospital - where a CAT scan revealed he had a broken nose.
Levine said he filed a report at the 61st Precinct last Sunday, but detectives discovered that Uzilov had given the officials a phony address when he was issued the summons.
Not content to let it go, Levine said he asked friends who frequent the dog run to call him if Uzilov ever showed up.
On Thursday, Uzilov and his dog did show. A pal alerted Levine, who called the police.
Uzilov was arrested and charged with assault and menacing.
