Humane enforcement

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1995:

Alan Roberts, 29, of
Westminster, California, was on October
16 aquitted of a cruelty charge for beating an
eight-month-old Akita/chow mix to death with
a baseball bat last July, an hour after the freeroaming
dog mauled his 19-month-old son
Andrew in a Huntington Beach parking lot as
the boy waited for his mother, Stacy Morton,
32, to unlock the family car. The jury deliberated
for three hours. Andrew, who had done
modeling work, required 60 stiches, plastic
surgery, and psychological counseling. The
dog’s owner, April Wyld, 28, leashed the
dog to a nearby fence afterward, and again left
him unattended. Wyld, charged with negligence,
has rallied Orange County People for
Animals in her support. ANIMAL PEOPLE
has received no response to inquiries as to why
animal control didn’t impound the dog for
rabies observation in the hour between the
attack on Andrew and Alan Roberts’ return to
the scene after rushing Andrew to a hospital.

Convicted cat torturer Joseph
Kreckel, 23, of Milwaukee, on September
28 told Waukesha Circuit Judge Lee Dreyfus
that he didn’t intentionally mistreat animals.
Perceiving “a psychological issue or problem,”
Dreyfus sentenced Kreckel to four months of
work-release jail time, 100 hours of community
service, two years on probation, to seek
counseling, and to donate $350 to the
Waukesha County Humane Society––and
barred him from owning animals.
Charged September 8 with beating
his girlfriend’s Chihuahua to death o n
August 27, Barton Richard Brock, 37, of San
Jose, California, told Santa Clara Valley
Humane Society investigator Michael Frazer
that he only hit the dog on the head the way he
used to hit his son to wake him up after the
boy cried himself into exhaustion. Brock no
longer lives with his son. Veterinary records
showed the dog had been twice hospitalized
with head injuries after being left in Brock’s
care. With priors for burglary, assault, and
drug charges, Brock was held on bail of
$45,000––but because the burglary and assault
cases pertained to the same incident, he faces
a maximum sentence of 32 months in jail, not
life under California’s “three strikes” law.
Cat breeder and veterinary technician
Laura Duffy, 37, of La Honda,
California, on September 6 accepted a sentence
in settlement of an August 7 plea bargain
obliging her to give up custody of 26 cats, two
horses, and five goats; to serve 30 days in jail
plus three years on probation; to pay restitution
to the Peninsula Humane Society; and to
receive counseling and treatment. Contending
she was framed, Duffy drew early support
from other San Mateo County cat breeders
who spoke of making her April 29 arrest a
court test of the San Mateo County breeding
regulations, but most later backed away.
Crack dealers and prostitutes told
David Dawson of Montgomery, Alabama,
to surrender to Montgomery Humane Society
executive director Mary Mansour in midSeptember,
because her two-officer stakeout
of his neighborhood was bad for business.
Dawson was wanted for bludgeoning his own
two Labrador retrievers. When he did surrender,
he drew the maximum six months in jail
and a fine of $500 from Montgomery City
Court Judge Curtis Springer. Mansour’s conviction
rate, perhaps the best in the U.S.,
stands at 98% in 87 cases tried.
Alan Dahle, 34, of Haugen,
W i s c o n s i n , was charged on September 27
with disorderly conduct after his daughter, 13,
told friends and social workers that he shot a
springer spaniel the family had owned since
1989 and poisoned their goldfish on
September 14 because his 12-year-old son
played hooky from school and didn’t listen to
him. The children’s mother, Lori Dahl, took
a four-month-old Labrador to the Humane
Society of Barron County in Rice Lake so that
the Lab wouldn’t also be killed. The Lab was
adopted out to another family. Lori Dahl, the
12-year-old, and three younger siblings buried
the spaniel by flashlight that evening.
Accused of asking his riders,
“Should I hit it?” and then squashing a dog in
March 1994, school bus driver Daniel Paulus,
46, of Fredonia, Wisconsin, pleaded guilty
on October 17 to mistreatment of animals, and
agreed to pay $700 to the Ozaukee County
Child Abuse Prevention Fund.