Men putting in a new sunroom in the east Macon-Bibb County neighborhood were first alarmed by gunshots, then the sight and sounds of the wounded animal.
“It was one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever witnessed before. It was a horrible thing that happened,” said Brian Walls, who was installing windows at a nearby house when a man with a .22 rifle shot the pig in the side.
After a second gunshot, Walls says he figured the pig was dead and tried to ignore what was happening -- until he heard the pig’s painful cries.
“We were in shock to see him out here with a gun shooting in the neighborhood,” said Tim Montgomery, who was working with Walls. “They didn’t know what they were doing because, you know, if you shoot a pig, you’re supposed to shoot it between the eyes or in the back of the head, point-blank, or however they do it humanely.”
Walls confronted 62-year-old Freddie Phelps Sr. and begged him to put the approximately 200-pound animal out of its misery.
A couple hours later, the workmen saw that people were attacking the animal with poles.
“They were beating the pig, hitting it in the face and it was squealing. They weren’t hitting it hard enough to kill it. They were mainly just torturing the thing, and the thing had to be in horrible pain,” Walls said.
The men called 911 and were referred to Macon-Bibb Animal Welfare, which called in Bibb County sheriff’s deputies.
Officers had been out to Kings Park Circle on Monday when someone reported a loose pig rooting around the subdivision.
A deputy took the pig back home, as was noted on the department’s Facebook page.
“A Bibb County deputy went above and beyond the call of duty this morning to bring home the bacon ... literally!”
Are you trying to tell me that the deputy didn't notice the pig's injuries??
Officers had no idea the owner was reportedly fattening up the animal for slaughter, as was evident by the “We love a happy ending!” social media post.
OK, the reporter who posted this story is an idiot. Nothing makes sense. It makes it sound as though this deputy gave this injured pig back to its owner. NO! That's not what happened.
I poked around and found that the pig had gotten loose on MONDAY. At that time, nothing was wrong with the poor pig. Deputies returned the pig to its owner.
Then on WEDNESDAY the owner apparently asked this moron named Freddie Phelps Sr. to KILL the pig so she could eat it. How was she going to transport a dead pig to a processing plant for her, I guess she's too stupid to have thought that far ahead. So then, the moron Freddie Phelps Sr. says he'll kill the pig for her and proceeds to TORTURE THE PIG FOR HOURS.
Macon-Bibb Animal Welfare Director Sonja Adams and Sgt. Cson Johnson found the wounded animal behind a house in the 3300 block of Kings Park Circle.
Phelps and Michelle Fuller said they were asked by the pig’s owner, Gertha Atis, to kill the pig, according to an incident report.
Atis was in Atlanta to buy a freezer.
She reportedly had purchased
DO NOT SELL YOUR PETS ON CRAIGSLIST! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS!
Trampled dog food and scraps of moldy bread were on her front stoop Wednesday, but no one answered a knock at the door.
Empty packages of Vienna sausages and St. Louis-style ribs littered her yard.
“It was a pet pig,” Johnson said. “This wasn’t a hog you slaughter.”
The animal was suffering so much that Adams and Johnson asked a deputy to shoot it. A shot between the eyes, followed by one behind the ear, ended the ordeal.
The carcass was taken for a necropsy, according to a sheriff’s release, but [apparently the owner wanted its body for its meat].
Phelps, of Jeffersonville Road, was charged with aggravated animal cruelty and is being held in the Bibb County jail.
Animal welfare officers also removed a few dogs from the neighborhood in the course of their ongoing investigation, the workmen said.
“The most gross thing that is going to stick in my head is the pig with the pickax in its back,” Montgomery said. “People get hungry and they do crazy things, but I would have gladly gone to the store and bought them some bacon and ham if they’d left the pig alone.”
WHO IS GERTHA ATIS?
Well, if this is the same Gertha Atis, who calls herself Pastor-Getha Atis (she also goes by "Gertha Atis-Ministries"), she is a homophobe:
(Miami Herald - Aug 25, 2016)
