GEORGIA -- Shane is friendly but timid. Untrusting.
It sometimes takes two, three, four commands for the thoroughbred Rottweiler, a one-time show dog, to sit or stay or come. He takes time to warm up to visitors and, even then, it’s different than it used to be. He’s jumpy.
“Look at his tail,” owner Sabahuddin Grbic says, hurt, in a thick Bosnian accent. Whether from fear or shame or intimidation, Shane’s long tail is almost ceaselessly tucked between his legs.
He is not at all like he was prior to that fateful August encounter — the one that triggered what may be the first-ever criminal investigation into the actions of a Gwinnett County animal control officer.
At 1:13 p.m. on Aug. 30, Gwinnett County Animal Control Officer Austin H. Fetner was dispatched to 1343 Pendale Drive, where Shane had been corralled in a yard after escaping from his own about half a mile away. By Fetner’s own official account, he was at the scene for 15 minutes before leaving with the dog.
What happened over that quarter-hour has become the center of controversy, a contentious imbroglio with two very different versions: one describing a justified case of self-defense, the other detailing a bloody, abusive overreaction.
“When the 120 (pound) Rott ran towards me showing teeth and growling,” Fetner wrote in his report, “I was in fear for my life and I had to hit the K9 with my pole.”
Said Annabella Flynn-Dempsey, one of several witnesses: “The dog wasn’t chasing him. He was chasing the dog. He chose to stay in there and beat the dog into submission.”
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Austin Fetner, a 2009 Grayson High School grad and Army National Guardsman, was hired as a Gwinnett County animal control officer on Oct. 13, 2012. He resigned on Oct. 23, 2014 — 34 days after a citizen complaint was filed regarding his conduct with Shane. That complaint triggered still-active internal affairs and criminal investigations by the Gwinnett County Police Department and district attorney’s office.
The Daily Post obtained through the Georgia Open Records Act more than 400 “animal control issue summaries” detailing Fetner’s interactions with dogs, specifically with those either on the loose or “confined” by someone other than their owners. Typically just a few sentences long, none revealed any potential abuse or otherwise aggressive behavior on Fetner’s behalf.
Except for the report from Aug. 30.
The following are excerpts from the report filed following Fetner’s encounter that day with Shane, who was confined in Flynn-Dempsey’s fenced-in sideyard:
• “I stood in the middle of pen and walked his direction to try and put my pole on the K9. When I got close just the pole between us the K9 growled, showed teeth, and ran my direction. When the 120 (pound) rott ran towards me showing teeth and growling I was in fear for my life and I had to hit the K9 with my pole.”
• “I knew I had to catch the K9 quick before he was able to get over the fence. Trying to loop the pole around him again the K9 kept running to each side of the enclosure trying to jump fence each time getting closer and closer to me when he would pass by me.”
• “The size of the K9 and the small enclosure we were in made me feel that much more uncomfortable and nervous when the K9 ran back and forth and if I did not keep my distance from him with my pole I believe I would have been seriously injured or killed.”
Shane was bleeding when he was detained. The report mentions striking the dog just once.
••••••••
Flynn-Dempsey tells a decidedly different version.
The Lilburn woman said her daughter saw Shane wandering the area near her home on Pendale Drive that day and put him in the yard, where he played with Flynn-Dempsey’s three dogs and her grandson. They threw a ball, Shane took a nap.
“He was just big and fluffy and friendly and just a sweetheart,” Flynn-Dempsey said.
Flynn-Dempsey said that, when Fetner arrived, he attempted to leash Shane several times but had no luck. The dog was running past Fetner when, according to Flynn-Dempsey, he “took a full baseball swing” with his catch pole, cracking the Rottweiler on the head.
“It was so damn loud,” Flynn-Dempsey said. “One of the neighbors that was behind me said, ‘Oh dear God, did he shoot him?’”
Flynn-Dempsey alleges that Fetner hit the dog with his pole five more times, mostly on the head and face. There was blood everywhere as Shane was finally dragged to Fetner’s truck, she said.
“One neighbor screamed, ‘Why are you beating that dog?’” Flynn-Dempsey said. “He screamed, ‘If you don’t like what I’m doing call my supervisor.’”
••••••••
In the days following the incident on Pendale Drive, Grbic repeatedly called and visited the Gwinnett County animal shelter. Every time, he was told Shane wasn’t there — until Sept. 6, a full week after Fetner corralled him.
Grbic said he was told there had been a mix-up because Shane was in the quarantine area.
“When I saw the dog,” Grbic says, misty-eyed, “for six, seven seconds I just watched him. I knew it was him, but he didn’t look the same. He was a completely different dog.”
Shane has since been evaluated by several different veterinarians and animal hospitals. They found scar tissue from an injury inside his eye, as well as a cataract — possibly trauma-induced but impossible to say for sure. Doctors believe his behavioral changes are “caused by emotional trauma and not neurological damage.”
A horde of online supporters helped pay for Shane’s medical care by donating more than $2,700 to a fundraiser on YouCaring.com, and, as of Friday, more than 5,000 people had “liked” a Facebook page called “Justice 4 Shane.”
More than 32,000 people have signed an online petition asking Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter to prosecute Fetner “to the fullest extent of the law.”
••••••••
Gwinnett County police spokesman Cpl. Edwin Ritter confirmed in an email that the department, which oversees the county’s animal shelter and animal control activities, is conducting an internal investigation into Fetner’s actions on Aug. 30, but said that the county “will not comment while the investigation is ongoing.”
Porter, who has been Gwinnett’s district attorney for 22 years, said Fetner’s case is the first criminal investigation of an animal control officer that he’s ever been involved in.
A timeline has not been provided for either investigation. Attempts to contact Fetner, as well as shelter manager Sgt. Chip Moore, were not successful.
Penny Furr, an animal-loving defense attorney who is representing the Grbics throughout the investigation process, said there are currently no plans to sue the county. The family, she said, wants to give police and the district attorney’s office the opportunity to “do the right thing.”
“If (Fetner) was just a normal person,” she said, “he would already be arrested.”
That said, documents in Fetner’s personnel file do depict a “normal” person — at the time of his animal control application, he was an unemployed high school graduate living at his parents’ house. He’d taken classes at Georgia Gwinnett College and been in the Army National Guard for a few years.
He had no criminal history.
“I love animals,” Fetner wrote in his application, “and strongly feel that they need to be treated and handled with respect.”
(Gwinnettdailypost.com - Nov 15, 2014)
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