Woman shoots dog with a shotgun for biting her daughter
NORTH CAROLINA -- A Durham woman said she shot a dog with a shotgun and left it in the yard overnight Jan. 11 immediately after it bit her 2-year-old daughter.
Durham police charged Tasheka Laquon Beatty, 33, of 311 E. Knox St., with animal cruelty the next day.
Beatty said she is not a cruel person, but she had to protect her child, Latalya, who now has a large scar on her left cheek and may need facial reconstruction surgery.
"I do love animals, but I ask somebody, 'what would you do, if that was your child?" she said.
Beatty said she had been keeping the dog for a friend for about a month and that Latalya was very attached to it. But the dog turned on her daughter on Jan. 11, a morning Beatty said she'll never forget.
"The dog was laying down asleep. My little girl got out of bed and went to the dog and that's when he grabbed her. That's what woke me up," she said.
The dog bit the girl in the face, and then went after Latalya's father.
Beatty said she wasted no time in taking the dog outside and shooting it with a shotgun, before driving her daughter to Durham Regional Hospital, she said.
[Clearly there was no imminent danger if she was able to take the dog outside. It doesn't look like she has a fenced yard either so clearly she tied it up, went back inside, got the gun, came out and shot the animal. She shot it, not to protect herself, her daughter and her baby's daddy, but because she was enraged about the dog having attacked her child. That's understandble; any parent would be incensed, but there is NO excuse for cruelty to animals.]
The next day, Beatty said, she called police to have the dog taken to animal control. Police said the dog was still alive Jan. 12.
Durham County Animal Control seized the dog, but refused to comment on the extent of its injuries and whether it was still alive Wednesday.
Beatty said the dog died.
Beatty said she doesn't regret shooting the dog, which she said was a 1-year-old pit bull named Moo Moo.
"It mauled my daughter... I take full responsibility. I just think that's what any other parent would do if they (saw) what I saw," she said.
(WRAL - Jan 19, 2011)