“These sheep have been an important part of my life,” Gabriel Pilotti told his attorney under questioning on the witness stand in Senior Judge Ronald Nagle’s courtroom. “I am a shepherd, and I have a responsibility to protect my property. I am the one who looks after the things that need to be” taken care of.
It was with this sense of obligation — as well as the memory of a bloody attack on sheep belonging to neighbors nine months before — that Pilotti said he approached the two large dogs he found in his back yard on a morning in February.
“Not this again,” he said he thought to himself as he gathered a 20-gauge single barrel shotgun from his garage to confront the dogs and guard his flock of ewes and lambs.
“Did you intend at that moment to shoot” the dogs? asked attorney Thomas H. Ramsay, who is defending Pilotti in his trial on two counts of cruelty to animals. “No sir,” answered Pilotti.
But in a testy exchange on cross examination, Pilotti could not answer why he had tried no other measure to keep those dogs — pet Bernese Mountain Dogs named Argus and Fiona who belonged to a neighborhood family and had escaped through a broken fence that morning — at bay.
“If you didn’t intent to shoot anything, why didn’t you get a broom?” asked Assistant District Attorney Kevin Pierce. “Why did you go out with a gun?” Why not fire a warning shot, or yell, or try to scare the dogs, the prosecutor asked. “You didn’t do anything but shoot.”
In response, Pilotti proclaimed that he did not want to see the carnage that had occurred in his Chester Springs neighborhood off Horse Shoe Trial Road in May, when six sheep and an alpaca llama were killed and five other animals, including one of Pilotti’s flock, were injured. In that case, Pilotti had also fatally shot two pit bulls while they were mauling the sheep.
“In May I was too late,” Pilotti answered Pierce, his voice trembling with emotion. “I was too late! There was death and blood throughout the community. People said I was a hero, but I was too late. I was not going to be too late this time.”
Pilotti, 73, was arrested and charged with animal cruelty on Feb. 22, 10 days after the incident with Bernese Mountain Dogs in his pasture. His trial began on Monday with jury selection, and the case is expected to be presented to the jury of nine women and three men Wednesday after closing arguments by the jury and legal instructions by Nagle.
If convicted of the two counts, both first-degree misdemeanors, Pilotti faces a possible maximum sentence of 2½ to five years in prison, although his actual sentence will almost certainly be far less than that, based on state sentencing guidelines.
The shooting of the two dogs – Argus, 2, and Fiona, 1 – drew considerable media attention in the region, and inspired blog posts and a Facebook page “Justice for Argus and Fiona.” But crowds that were expected to attend the trial in the Chester County Justice Center have largely not appeared. On Tuesday, there were about seven supporters of the family who lost the pets – William and Mary Bock – and about one dozen friends and family members of Pilotti in Nagle’s courtroom.
Pilotti spent about one hour and 15 minutes on the witness stand, telling Ramsay something about his life, his love of sheep, and the two incidents involving dogs. The jury was shown a number of photos of Pilotti throughout the years with his sheep, including shots of one of his granddaughters cuddling a lamb.
As to the Feb. 12 incident, Pilotti told the jury that he had come home from work in Montgomery County and was in his kitchen about 11:15 a.m. when he looked out a back window and saw a large black dog in his pasture. He said he flashed back to the earlier incident in May when sheep were mauled, and went to his garage to retrieve his shotgun and ammunition.
As he made his way to the pasture, he said, he noticed another dog penning other sheep in an enclosure outside his barn.
He said he went to a rail fence that enclosed his pasture and saw the larger dog in proximity to a ewe and her lamb. He said he thought the other dog was “lunging” at the sheep as they were cornered in the enclosure.
“This is trouble,” Pilotti testified he said to himself. “I was not in any position to see (if any sheep) were injured or dead. I took my gun and I shot the first dog.”
Pilotti said he then turned his attention to the second dog, which upon hearing the report of the shotgun blast had moved out of the enclosure across the pasture. He reloaded the shotgun, aimed at the dog as it was crossing the field and fired. The second dog, Fiona, kept moving but fell dead some distance away.
“Did you shoot the two dogs because they were pursuing your lambs?” Ramsay asked.
“Yes, I did,” Pilotti answered. “I had no idea of what had happened (in the enclosure.)”
The entire episode took about 30 seconds, he said.
As he testified, William and Mary Bock sat in the rear of the courtroom, occasionally exchanging whispered comments. They both testified on Monday
As it turned out, none of Pilotti’s sheep were harmed in any way. Asked by Ramsay whether he would react differently in retrospect, he said that he would. But at the time, he reacted based on the perceived threat to his flock.
“Knowing what two dogs can do, I believe I made the decision I had to make as a shepherd.”
In other testimony, Chief Michael Swininger of the West Vincent Police Department said that he and officer Austin Russell, who was the primary investigator, interviewed Pilotti at the police station on Feb. 21. A tape recording of the 55-minute long interview was played for the jury.
In it, Pilotti seemingly has trouble explaining to the two officers where Argus, the first dog he saw, was in relation to the ewe and lamb he claimed he saw him chasing them. He indicated that the sheep were between him and the dog.
Swininger expressed incredulity at the description, saying that would have put the sheep in the line of fire of Pilotti’s shotgun when he pulled the trigger.
“I’ve been hunting all my life and I know about shotguns,” Swininger told Pilotti during the interview. “I am not buying any of this. It doesn’t make any sense, Gabe.”
Swininger also pressed Pilotti on whether Fiona, the second dog, had attacked the other ewes and lambs, who were in the enclosure. The herded up sheep never moved, he noted in the interview. “So the dog is not pursuing or chasing the sheep, and you did what?”
“I shot it,” Pilotti said.
In the police interview Pilotti spoke about the “precedent” he thought he had established in May when he shot and killed the pit bulls that had attacked the flocks of a neighbor. He had not been charged in that case after the attack was investigated by the township police and animal control officer.
In a phone message that Pierce played for the jury that Pilotti had left on the answering system of one of those neighbors, Pilotti alluded to the earlier incident.
“Hi Bob, this is Gabe,” his voice was heard saying. “Two shots, two more dogs. Chasing my sheep when I got home from work. I’ll be in touch. Bye, bye.”
(Mercury News - Sept 10, 2013)
Earlier:
“Why did you go out with a gun?” Why not fire a warning shot, or yell, or try to scare the dogs, the prosecutor asked. “You didn’t do anything but shoot.”
ReplyDeletebecause dogs will return fucktard.
i can't believe this sheep owner is being charged.