Georgia: Phong Thanh Tran, 43, arrested after breaking cows bones to flatten him on a flatbed trailer to be hauled to slaughter

GEORGIA -- A Commerce man was arrested by the Danielsville police for violating the city’s animal care ordinance last week after a caller called 9-1-1 to report someone hauling a live cow “racheted down” and strapped tightly to a flat bed trailer.

Phon Tran, 43, was arrested and charged with a violation of animal care ordinance.

Danielsville police officer Cleve Williams spotted the white Kia Sorento heading east on Hwy. 98, towing the trailer and live cow and pulled it over just before dark.

Tran told Williams a friend gave him the cow because it had a broken leg and he was heading to get it processed for meat at a processing plant in Nicholson. Tran called the meat processor at the officer’s request and the representative there told Williams that Tran did not have an appointment to process a cow and would need would to have such a large animal processed.

Williams noted that the cow was strapped down at each hoof on its stomach and appeared to be wounded on both legs, with one leg appearing to be punctured and injured. A fifth strap was placed over the cow’s neck and tightened down that the animal’s head was pinned to the front railing of the trailer.

“Given the manner of the cow’s confinement and its treatment, I arrested Mr. Tran for violations of the Danielsville Animal Care ordinance,” Williams noted in his report. The cow was taken to a nearby animal processing plant and killed there and the body was released to Tran’s wife for disposal.

Tran was taken to the Madison County Jail.

Police chief Brenan Baird said the processor told police the suspect’s actions had “broken every bone in its pelvis” as a result of the tie down and was damaged too badly to even be processed for meat. 

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Baird said, calling the incident “bizarre."

(Madison Journal Today - Dec 7, 2015)