The video was recorded by a surveillance camera set up outside Ivan Salazar's home on East Park Estates Circle.
Salazar said he had set up cameras to catch people who were vandalizing cars in the neighborhood, instead he caught a horrible case of animal abuse. The culprits were children living near the area.
The video showed a group of children outside Salazar's home, some of them on bicycles. Then you see a boy in a red shirt fling a little white dog with all of his strength over Salazar's fence into his backyard. The dog flipped in the air at least three times before landing.
Salazar said he looked up the footage after coming home to find the little white dog in his backyard, along with his two pit bulls. The dog appeared to be OK, but he wondered how it got there, and went back to look at his tapes. What he saw shocked him.
"The dog was flying," Salazar said. "It flipped in the air three times, and slammed against the fence. The kid just grabbed him with all his strength and threw him like it was a little toy or something."
He said he was concerned because acts of violence against animals usually progressed into more violence in children, if it remained unchecked.
The dog, a little white poodle-mix named Chickees belongs to Priscilla Romero and her children. She saw the video for the first time, in our live truck and was horrified.
"I am very disturbed right now, very upset," Romero said. "I think it's a parent's responsibility to know how their kids are treating other kids or pets."
We also caught up with the family of one of the little boys featured in the surveillance footage. They had no idea their children had been involved in the incident, and were horrified to see the video. The family told Tucson News Now the 10-year-old boy in the red shirt who flung the dog was a cousin who was visiting.
We spoke to the 13-year-old boy who was with him when it happened.
"I was not going to jump over the fence and see if it was OK. I was shocked, I said to him why did you throw the dog?" said the little boy.
Romero said she did not plan to notify authorities or press charges. She just hoped this incident would serve as a wake up call for parents to talk to their children about animal abuse and cruelty, with their children.
The dog who was flung over the fence appeared to be doing OK on Monday afternoon.
(Tucson News Now - Feb 26, 2013)
