He Jumped Into the Lake to Escape the Dogs. He Never Came Back Up.

On the evening of June 18, 2026, a 12-year-old boy named Fernando Torres Moreno was at Central Park in California City with his eight-year-old sister. According to police, three off-leash dogs set on the two children. The little girl was mauled. Fernando ran for the only thing between him and the animals — the lake — and jumped in. He did not come back up.

Officers reached the park at about 6:07 p.m. on a report of a drowning in progress, found the boy at the bottom of the lake, and began CPR. He was rushed to a hospital in the Tehachapi Valley, transferred to a children’s hospital in Bakersfield, and pronounced dead the next day, June 19, by the Kern County Coroner. His sister’s injuries were serious but not life-threatening.

The owner of the dogs, police say, is Kenneth Dobbins, 68 — a previously convicted felon who, investigators allege, was in the park with all three animals, off-leash, when the attack happened. He has been charged with involuntary manslaughter. He is presumed innocent until a court says otherwise. This is what the record shows, sourced line by line.

• 12 years old — Fernando Torres Moreno of California City, who drowned in the Central Park lake on June 18 while running from a pack of dogs · Source: KGET 17; Kern County Coroner
• 8-year-old sister — mauled in the same attack; her injuries were described as serious but not life-threatening · Source: KGET 17; 23ABC Bakersfield
• 3 dogs, off-leash — the number police say Dobbins had with him at the park; one was later located in Los Angeles County and seized · Source: California City PD statement; Desert News
• 68 — the age of Kenneth Dobbins, the alleged owner — described by police as a previously convicted felon with ties to California City and Palmdale · Source: KTLA; BakersfieldNow
• 2 charges — involuntary manslaughter and negligent owner of a mischievous animal causing serious bodily injury and/or death, per the arrest warrant · Source: California City PD; KTLA
• June 25 — the day Dobbins was captured in Lancaster — a week after the attack, and only after a resident recognized him and called police · Source: BakersfieldNow; 23ABC Bakersfield

California City sits in the high desert of eastern Kern County, a sprawling, thinly populated town built around a man-made lake. That lake, at Central Park on Heather Avenue, is where families go on a warm evening. On June 18 it became the scene of a child’s death. Police say Fernando and his younger sister were at the park when three dogs — not on leashes — came at them. The girl could not outrun them and was bitten and mauled. Fernando made it to the water and went in, and the lake that drew families there took him.

The emergency call came in as a drowning, not a dog attack — a 12-year-old had jumped into the lake running from dogs and had not surfaced. Officers and first responders pulled him from the bottom and worked to revive him. The sequence of cause and effect is the thing that makes this a crime story and not only a tragedy: by the account police have laid out, the boy did not drown by accident. He drowned because he was being chased.

Keep Reading

Society · Transparency

Judge Orders DOJ to Unredact Epstein Files, Says Blanche 'Conceded' Breaking the Law

Read →

The Kern County Coroner identified the boy as Fernando Torres Moreno, 12, of California City. He had gone to the park with his eight-year-old sister — the detail that turns an abstract “dog attack” into what it actually was: two children, alone with a pack of loose animals, with nowhere to go. The sister was attacked first and most directly; reporting describes her as mauled, with injuries serious enough to hospitalize her but not life-threatening. She survived. Her brother did not.

There is a temptation, with stories like this, to treat the drowning as the headline and the dogs as the footnote. The order is backwards. A boy who can swim does not jump into a lake and stay under unless something on the bank is worse than the water. Whatever Fernando weighed in that instant, he chose the lake. That is the fact that frames everything that follows: the charges, the manhunt, and the question of who is answerable for three off-leash dogs in a public park.

Investigators traced the dogs to Kenneth Dobbins, 68. The preliminary investigation led officers to the nearby Lakeshore Condominiums, where they made contact with Dobbins. By the account read into the public record, he told them he had been at the park with his three dogs — but appeared not to grasp what had happened. Over a four-day investigation, police say they confirmed that Dobbins and those three dogs were the ones that attacked the two children, killing one and seriously injuring the other. The breed of the dogs has not been released.

Police described Dobbins as a previously convicted felon with loose ties to California City and to Palmdale, in neighboring Los Angeles County. That detail matters less as character and more as motive for what came next: when officers obtained a warrant and came back to arrest him, he was gone. One of the three dogs was later found in Los Angeles County and seized by authorities — a small confirmation that the animals, and apparently their owner, had scattered out of Kern County.

Keep Reading

Society · Drain the Swamp

Gavin Newsom's Circle of Corruption: The People He Promoted Keep Going to Prison

Read →

The arrest warrant charges Dobbins with two crimes: involuntary manslaughter, and negligent owner of a mischievous animal causing serious bodily injury and/or death to another. The second charge tracks California Penal Code section 399, the statute that holds a dog’s owner criminally responsible when an animal they knew, or should have known, to be dangerous is allowed to roam and then kills or seriously injures someone. It is the legal mechanism that says a loose, dangerous dog is not an act of God — it is a choice the owner made.

Two cautions belong here, in fairness. First, the public record does not yet establish whether these dogs had a documented history of aggression or prior complaints — the “knew or should have known” element a section 399 case turns on. Police have not released that, and we will not assume it. Second, Dobbins has been charged, not convicted; the involuntary-manslaughter count means prosecutors are alleging criminal negligence, not intent. What is not in dispute is the outcome: a child is dead, a child was mauled, and three dogs were running loose in a public park.

“Negligent owner of a mischievous animal causing serious bodily injury and/or death to another.”

California City Police Department, describing the arrest warrant charges against Kenneth Dobbins

On June 23, officers returned to serve the involuntary-manslaughter warrant and found that Dobbins had fled the location where they had last contacted him. For two days the California City Police Department asked the public for help finding a 68-year-old man who had, in effect, vanished after his dogs killed a child. The break did not come from a database or a license plate reader. It came from an ordinary resident in Lancaster, in Los Angeles County, who recognized Dobbins near her workplace and called it in.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies took him into custody on Thursday, June 25 — a week to the day after the attack. He was booked into the Kern County jail to face the charges where the crime is alleged to have occurred, with a court appearance set for the following Monday. The arrest closed the manhunt. It does not close the case, and it does nothing for the family of a 12-year-old who is not coming home.

Strip away the manhunt drama and a hard civic question remains. Three dogs were loose in a family park, off leash, with their owner present and — police say — apparently unaware or unbothered as they chased two children. Leash laws exist precisely to prevent this. The charge under Penal Code 399 exists precisely to punish it when prevention fails. The case will test whether prosecutors can show the dogs were known to be dangerous; if they can, this stops being a freak accident and becomes a preventable death.

The other thread worth watching is the week between the attack and the arrest. A man whose dogs had just killed a boy was able to leave the location, cross a county line, and stay free until a stranger happened to spot him. That gap is not unique to California City, but it is the kind of detail that erodes public trust: the sense that a person can do grievous harm and simply move. The system did eventually work — through a tip, not a tracker. Whether the prosecution that follows holds the owner fully accountable is the part that is still unwritten.

A 12-year-old boy, Fernando Torres Moreno, drowned in a California City park lake on June 18 while running from three loose dogs; his eight-year-old sister was mauled and survived. Police charged the dogs’ owner, Kenneth Dobbins, 68 — a previously convicted felon — with involuntary manslaughter and with being the negligent owner of a mischievous animal under Penal Code 399. He fled, and was caught a week later in Lancaster on a citizen’s tip. Dobbins is presumed innocent, the dogs’ breed and any prior-aggression history have not been released, and the case now moves to the Kern County courts. We will track the charges, the prosecution, and what the record ultimately shows about how three dogs came to be loose in a park full of children.

More From Civic Intelligence

Society · Crime Problem

'We Cannot Reach a Verdict': The Palisades Fire Trial Ends in a Hung Jury

A federal jury split 10-2 for acquittal and hung; Judge Anne Hwang declared a mistrial June 26, 2026…

Society · Drain the Swamp

A Mamdani-Backed Socialist Won a Queens Senate Primary — Then a 2017 Tape on 9/11 Resurfaced

Aber Kawas (D, DSA), endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, won the NY State Senate District 12…

Last updated June 26, 2026