Mike Jackson recorded images of a bloody trail that stretched 1.6 miles down asphalt roads and over railroad tracks after a lab mix was dragged behind a pickup truck. The dog was dragged from a residence on Old Rome Road to a store in Kingston on Saturday night.
"To view it, to see it, to see something that would have happened like that -- there's no word to describe," Jackson said.
Jackson came upon pools of blood in the store's parking lot and found a dog, near death, still tied to the truck's rear bumper. The truck's driver was apparently still shopping in the store.
"Without being too graphic, I guess you can imagine sliding down a cheese grater for a mile and a half. The end result is laying there in the parking lot," said Jackson.
Jackson did what he could to comfort the distressed animal, even helping the driver who dragged the dog load it into the truck bed.
Distraught witnesses contacted Animal Rescue Foundation's Dayna Crumley; the dog and the driver were gone when she arrived.
Crumley followed the bloody trail leading back to the dog owner's residence -- a Bartow County Sheriff's Deputy was on scene.
"I asked if we could take the dog for emergency medical vetting and at that point in time. The officer said no, ‘The dog is dead, please remove yourself from the property," Crumley said.
[The Bartow County Sheriff's Office should reprimand this moron.]
According to the police report the dog owner, who was not the driver, stated he tied the dog to the truck bumper earlier in the day because it had gotten loose. He later asked an unnamed individual to go to the store for him, forgetting that the dog was tied to the vehicle. That person drove the truck, not realizing the dog was tied to the bumper until he was alerted by angry onlookers.
"It's absolutely unbelievable and it's just completely disheartening because had that been a human body that he had drug behind his truck there is no doubt he would have been prosecuted," Crumley said.
Crumley and others are outraged to learn the driver won't be charged because officials ruled it was an accident. Jackson was most disturbed by the man's demeanor...
"Whether the guy intended to do it or not, when he knew about it, he chose to do nothing and I think that's the tragedy here," Jackson said.
While police ruled it an accident outraged animal lovers believe charges should be filed in the case. They believe the driver violated Georgia's animal cruelty laws.
(myfoxatlanta - Aug 12 2013)
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