MARYLAND -- Gene Henry Barber may not have understood the consequences of firing a .22-caliber bullet into the chest of Lady, a 4-year-old German shepherd who lived near him at the Maryland Manor Mobile Park 15 miles south of here.
But now he has three months in jail to think about it.
In what animal activists said is part of a trend toward stiffer sentences in cruelty cases, Barber was sentenced last week to 90 days in the Anne Arundel County Detention Center on joint charges of animal cruelty and discharging a weapon in a populated area.
He was also put on six years' probation and ordered to pay $1,000 restitution to Lady's owner, Gail Johnson, 45, for the death of her pet.
"Society is just too sophisticated to have people just go around shooting someone else's dog," said District Judge Lawrence Rushworth, who found Barber guilty Wednesday in a nonjury trial and imposed sentence the same day.
In his only other animal cruelty case, which involved the bow-and-arrow shooting two years ago of a dog found rummaging in a trash can, Rushworth imposed a similar sentence. He said he takes animal cruelty charges seriously because of the emotional attachment between owners and their pets.
"I don't know what value you can put on a dog. I am sure that if you own a dog, you put the value substantially high," Rushworth said, adding that in Johnson's case, "one could not help but feel sorry for this . . . woman who had lost her pet."
Johnson, who has used a wheelchair since the removal of a brain tumor in September, lives with family friend Thomas Strempek in a trailer near Barber's at the mobile home park in Harwood, south of Annapolis.
According to Strempek, the Jan. 31 shooting deprived Johnson of her closest companion. The dog would stroll alongside her electric wheelchair when they went for walks, and always obey her commands.
"She cried for days," said Strempek, 62. "She missed that dog because that dog was her best friend, really."
Strempek said Barber had threatened to kill Lady several times because he said the dog barked at him in a menacing way, a claim Rushworth dismissed as "not believable" in the absence of any evidence that Lady ever tried to attack or bite him.
On the day of the shooting, while Lady cavorted with Johnson's grandson and some neighborhood children, Strempek said Barber provoked the dog twice by squirting it with a hose.
Although he said he was surprised by the sentence and claims he would never have suggested a jail term for the shooting (why not???), Strempek said, "I am not upset that {Barber} got time to think" about killing the dog.
Barber could not be reached for comment. Assistant State's Attorney John LeCornu, who prosecuted the case, said he will probably be released from jail pending an appeal.
(Washington Post - August 23, 1988)
