ALASKA -- The shooting death of an 8-month-old puppy has ignited a firestorm on local social media pages and mobilized a Goldstream Valley neighborhood.
Lucy, a Labrador retriever mix, failed to return home after her owner, Dan Powell, let her out to relieve herself early in the morning July 2. Powell walked around his Jones Road-area property calling for her and quickly became concerned because it was unusual for her to roam.
He posted a “lost dog” notice with a short description of Lucy on the Goldstream Community Facebook page before heading out to search the neighborhood. He found her body a short time later.
“I’d only been away from the house 10 minutes or so. There’s not a whole lot of road there, and I just drove around in a circle. She was dead there in the road right at the end of my driveway,” Powell said during a phone interview late last week.
Lucy had been shot once in the forehead at close range with a .22 short round, which can be used in both rifles and pistols. Powell saved the shell casing and called Alaska State Troopers. They told him they’d record the incident happened but wouldn’t come out to investigate.
Social media outrage
Shortly after Powell discovered Lucy’s body, he posted a status update on the Goldstream Community group Facebook page reading
“Found my dog,” with several photos of her as she lay dead on the road.
Even though the post was taken down by site administrators soon afterward, multiple group members heard about the incident and started comments threads of their own on that page as well as the Fairbanks Animal Sales group Facebook page.
Several people commented about their dogs going missing in the same neighborhood, while others told of dogs shot in other neighborhoods around town. Community members whose dogs temporarily went missing posted urgent notices imploring others not to shoot their dog if found.
Some wondered if Lucy had been hit by a car and then shot to put her out of her misery, but Powell said she had no marks on her other than the bullet hole and powder burns on her forehead.
The overall tenor of the Facebook comments was anger at Lucy’s shooting and outrage that troopers weren’t investigating the incident.
Many vowed to contact troopers in hopes of getting some justice for Lucy and Powell. Goldstream Community group member Mara Bee posted the contents of a letter she said she was sending to troopers, Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly members and Animal Control.
In the letter, Bee condemned the killing and said there were “ample statistics that back up the fact that an individual who is wantonly cruel and violent to animals frequently extends that same violence and cruelty to his/her fellow humans.”
“Someone who demonstrates this kind of total disregard for a dog, who objectifies it into something simply to be used for target practice, is exactly the type of person we do not want in our community, town, or state,” Bee said in the letter.
Little recourse under the law
When reached for comment last week, trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said the information they had about Lucy’s death indicated there was nothing to suggest criminality because “just shooting a dog and killing it is technically not against the animal cruelty statute.”
Alaska statute defines animal cruelty as killing or injuring an animal with poison or a decompression chamber; killing or injuring an animal with the intent to terrorize, threaten or intimidate another person; knowingly inflicting severe or prolonged physical pain or suffering on an animal; or causing death or severe physical pain and suffering through neglecting to care for an animal.
Peters said she’s a dog owner herself and can sympathize with Powell and other community members upset about Lucy’s shooting, but troopers are bound to uphold the law as it is written.
“When it comes to an animal’s death, certainly we understand that people love their animals, but what people think should be against the law and what actually is against the law are two different things,” Peters said.
Though quickly killing a dog by shooting it is not considered animal cruelty, it can be considered a property crime as per Alaska statute because dogs are considered personal property in Alaska.
If a suspect can be found and a case proved, he or she can be prosecuted for felony third-degree criminal mischief if the dog was valued at $500 or more, fourth-degree criminal mischief if the value was more than $50 but less than $500, or fifth-degree criminal mischief if the value was less than $50.
Borough ordinances about dogs and other animals only address proper restraint of the animal, waste disposal, harboring diseased or annoying animals, release from restraint by a non-owner, and animal cruelty as it’s defined by Alaska statute.
Neighborhood comes together
About 40 Goldstream community members held a meeting Sunday night at Ivory Jack’s to discuss the issue. Trooper Scott McAfee, Rep. Dave Guttenberg and FNSB Director of Emergency Services David Gibbs were on hand to listen to their concerns and talk about what could be done about the situation.
McAfee said he’d collected the shell casing from Powell and would continue to monitor the situation, but couldn’t establish a crime at that point because he didn’t have enough information.
“If things continue to happen and we can tie it to others, then maybe we can establish a crime in this case,” McAfee said. “The reality of how the law’s set up, it is our responsibility as dog owners to keep our dogs secure.”
McAfee said the shooter, if found, could possibly be prosecuted for weapons misconduct if it could be proved he was shooting towards a residence when he shot Lucy.
McAfee urged everyone to keep their dogs secured “as best you can,” to be on the lookout for suspicious vehicles and to call in license plates numbers or patrol requests to troopers if they suspect criminal activity.
McAfee also said it would be a good idea to post cameras on driveways and roads and to organize a neighborhood watch because it could help with the growing burglary problem in the Goldstream Valley and other semi-rural neighborhoods.
Guttenberg praised the meeting attendees for a “big first effort” and encouraged them to continue.
“At the end of the day it’s the community taking control, putting up signs and letting people know you’re watching,” Guttenberg said. “It’s peer pressure and how you deal with the bad actors in your community.”
(Newsminer - July 13, 2016)
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