Amateur Amputation

[slacker]

Irregular News for 02.26.07

 

San Antonio, TX -- While painting the deck of her South Side home one sunny afternoon this month, a woman witnessed something that made her stomach turn.

 

A passing car had struck a small black dog named Chiquita. A neighbor was using a pair of pruning shears and a pocketknife to remove the creature's broken leg, pinning the dog's head to the front stoop with his shoe while performing the impromptu surgery, she said.

 

The man later told police he was trying to treat the dog's injuries. The dog's owner, who is the man's brother-in-law, told police he "was OK with (the man) trying to treat (his) dog," a police report said.

 

Police arrested no one and left without contacting officials with Animal Care Services, who learned about the incident two days later. By then the dog had died, the brother-in-law said. Officials said the owner threw the dog's body in the trash.

 

The episode has spurred a local investigation and captured national attention to what some are calling a particularly heinous instance of animal cruelty. Dale Bartlett, deputy manager for animal cruelty issues with the Humane Society of the United States, wrote District Attorney Susan Reed this week urging her to "aggressively prosecute" the man, who is not being named because he had not been charged.

 

The organization tracks about 2,400 cases of animal cruelty across the country every year but intervenes in only about 300 due to limited resources, Bartlett said in a phone interview.

 

"What we have to do is focus on the ones that are particularly egregious, that are clearly indicative of an act that falls so far outside of the bounds of what's accepted societal behavior," he said.

 

The incident occurred around 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 13.

 

Ronald Rodriguez was tilling the front yard of the woman's house when he saw a car hit the dog and continue driving. The man down the street then picked up the dog and applied the pruning shears, Rodriguez said.

 

"Before this happened, the dog's leg was not bleeding. It was just broken. He stuck his foot on the dog's head, and this dog is just crying like you cannot believe, and he tries to cut (the leg) off with the shears."

 

Rodriguez added, "It took him over 30 minutes, and he still didn't get the leg off. The dog's leg is now just hanging by threads of meat."

 

Both Rodriguez and the woman, who asked to be identified only as Barbara for fear of retaliation, confronted the man and told him to stop.

 

"He said, 'Look, I've done this before. I'm doing the dog a favor,'" Barbara said. "I went inside the house and called 911 because it made me nauseous what he was doing. I was in tears."

 

Informed the police were coming, the blood-soaked man brought the dog into his house, the witnesses recalled. When he emerged he had changed his clothes and washed off the blood, they said.Police officers came and went.

 

Police spokesman Sgt. Gabe Trevino on Friday said he was unaware of the details of the incident and could not comment on the officers' judgment.

 

This week, Jeff Hale, director of Animal Care Services, met with Police Chief William McManus to discuss a lack of coordination between the two departments. Hale said his department wants to provide police officers with information that would clarify conditions of animal cruelty.

 

The case of Chiquita is under investigation as a possible state jail felony offense. The city plans to forward it to the district attorney's office next week, said Kathleen McGowan, assistant director of Animal Care Services.

 

The man accused of hurting the dog could not be reached for comment. His brother-in-law, who didn't witness the incident, said he didn't believe the man used shears to rip off the dog's leg.

 

"He ain't perfect, but he ain't no psychopath," he said. "He was just trying to nurse the dog."

 

Eddie Wright, the city's animal cruelty investigator, said lower income animal owners have options should their pet become injured, such as establishing a credit plan with a veterinarian.

 

Bartlett in his letter to Reed suggested the man receive psychological counseling and said in the interview he believes the man deserves jail time even if he felt he was only helping the animal.

 

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[AR Husker Fan]

There are two people in that story that need the same treatment applied to their balls - the one who let the dog run loose in the first place and the one that hit it.

[BIGREDIOWAN]

There is nothing that they can say to make this right!!!! No court of law is going to listen to some bull$hit excuse of how they were just trying to "help the dog!!!" Give me a break morons......

[HuskerNCo]

WTF is wrong with people! My god.

[huskernumerouno]

this is just wrong in every sense of the word

[Drowning_in_the_Sea_of_Red]

I kinda want to shoot that damn bastard in the head.

[rawhide]

At the very least euthanize the dog if they can't afford a vet bill.