I once covered an appeal from Oak Ride City Court in Anderson County Circuit Court in East Tennessee where a Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Plant engineer attacks and murdered a neighbor's dog for barking. (The dog awakened him at 3 AM, and he needed his sleep to help make nuclear weapons, Fuller argued; the man struck the dog in the head with an iron bar from his basement. Defended by debt collection lawyer Walter Fuller, the angry engineer claimed "national security" as his defense, winning a reduction in his sentence from ten days to two days. But at least Anderson County District Attorney General James Nelson Ramsey and Assistant DA Janice Grabowski Hicks pursued the case. Elsewhere in certain less enlightened South, including Florida, including St. Johns County, animal cruelty cases are not much of a priority.
This is from Slate:
Dozens of Dogs Left Tied Up in Florida as Hurricane Irma Approached
Brian Blanco/Getty Images
Authorities in south Florida rushed to rescue as many animals as possible ahead of Hurricane Irma’s arrival. In Palm Beach County, animal control officers rescued 49 dogs and two cats that weren’t just left inside a house, but rather tied up or somehow restrained so they would have no way of even attempting to escape if there is flooding. “They are left in a yard, in a pen they cannot escape from or tethered to trees or poles,” Palm Beach County Director of Animal Care Diane Suave said. She said that this type of abandonment is the worst thing that pet owners can do. "There is absolutely no excuse for doing that."
Authorities say they will pursue felony animal cruelty charges against anyone if they manage to gather enough evidence, although identifying pet owners, particularly in the middle of a disaster, can be difficult. “This is a prime example of animal cruelty,” State Attorney Dave Aronberg said. “We will find you, and we will prosecute you.” For now, authorities are asking people to consider sheltering any animals they see left outside during the storm.
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