UTAH -- An Ogden man bound his pit bull’s muzzle with tightly wound rubber bands, suffocating and killing the family pet after it chewed his belongings, charging documents say.
An arrest warrant was issued Friday for Romeo Lucero, 23, in the torture death of the 3-year-old female canine, Remmy.
The charge — third-degree felony torture of a companion animal — is a landmark in Ogden City’s pursuit of animal cruelty cases.
“This is the very first cruelty felony charge that has ever gone through from Ogden City,” Stefanie Butte, Ogden Animal Services supervisor, said Saturday. “I’ve worked a very long time on this case ... it has been my goal to push some of these cruelty cases through to felonies.”
On March 10, witnesses reported to authorities that Lucero’s pit bull had been tied to a post with an extremely short cord. Her snout was bound shut by six elastic bands wrapped around 15 times, said an arrest warrant affidavit filed in 2nd District Court on Friday.
Remmy was trapped, unable to lie down or move comfortably, for at least 12 hours overnight and suffocated and died, the document said. A necropsy determined “the rubber bands had been so tight that they actually indented the dog’s tongue on the inside of the dog’s mouth.”
The Utah Legislature a few years ago passed a law allowing for felony animal cruelty prosecutions. Butte said now people who torture animals may pay a greater penalty.
Felony charges require evidence of intent, which she said Lucero’s case shows.
Witnesses recorded video of the torture and provided it to investigators.
”You have no idea” of the pain and terror the dog endured, Butte said. “She suffered horribly and for a very long time.”
Ogden police investigators interviewed Lucero, whom they said admitted tying and binding Remmy “because he was angry that it had chewed on his belongings.”
“She was a blue-nosed pit bull,” Butte said. “She was beautiful and it’s very sad. She was the family pet, his little boy’s dog.”
In the past, consequences for animal abusers often have been too lenient, she said.
“I have worked on some heinous cases and it is very discouraging. Often they plead down to one charge and they get a $200 fine and that’s a slap on the hand.”
In Lucero’s matter, the torture was so egregious, ”we want him to do jail time,“ Butte said.
Conviction on a felony torture charge could bring a greater fine as well as time behind bars, something those convicted of misdemeanor cruelty counts usually do not face.
Ogden police said Saturday they did not know whether Lucero had been arrested yet.
(Standard.net - May 24, 2015)
No comments:
Post a Comment