What seems like a fair punishment for someone who comes onto another person’s property, forces the property owner to drag their dog from their home and tie it to a post, and proceeds to shoot the pet three times while the family looks on? It seems obvious that the person who did this either had murderous intent or was completely deranged or both. I would expect him to receive a life sentence, if he was not committed immediately to a mental institution for treatment.
I also have to wonder about the dog owner who went along with tying their dog to a post. I can’t imagine allowing something like that to happen to my pet without first being shot myself, but I don’t have any dependents other than my dog, and who knows how my bravery would hold up unarmed, against an angry man’s rifle.
The crime was committed in Felt, Idaho, in late 2007, by a Teton County Sheriff’s deputy. After pleading guilty last week, the deputy, Joseph Guitierrez, was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Seems like a light sentence given the brutality of his actions. But wait, 25 days of his sentence were suspended, and he has been assigned to a sheriff’s inmate labor detail for the other five. Sounds like he will spend a total of zero days in jail. He does have to pay a whopping $100 fine and serve a six-month UNSUPERVISED probation. If he completes probation successfully the crime may be removed from his record. Is it possible to unsuccessfully complete an unsupervised probation?
Is this justice? Apparently it is … in Teton Valley, Idaho, and not just in the mind of Judge Colin Luke. There is a poll on the home page of the local paper asking people if they are satisfied with the outcome of this case. It appears that this is not an important issue to Teton Valley News readers because there are only a few votes, but shockingly 71% have voted “Yes,” they are satisfied with the outcome of the case. They believe that $100 and 40 hours of work is fair punishment for this barbarity.
and how often do we read about the connection btwn brutality to animals and brutality to other humans? but no, you get someone and have the chance to show some spine, but let him go. and he was a “trusted” public servant. i also wonder about the town. sounds like a witch hunt mentality. like maybe they didn’t like the victim. i wonder if they’d be okay if it had happened to another.
animal abuse here goes almost unpunished. there is a group of lawyers who put in pro-bono work to help the rspca get abusers punished.
honestly. shooting the dog? coming onto the property? wasn’t there another crime in that as well? if you couldn’t get him for the dog, couldn’t you have nailed him for something else?
I think the mentality is the same as the deputies in St. Bernard Parish that shot dogs and cats that had been left for safe-keeping in area schools after Katrina. The charges against those “trusted” public servants were dropped in 2008 despite video evidence.
In many parts of the U.S. and World, large percentages of the population don’t have any value for non-human life, so shooting a dog or cat is a non-issue. Most of the outcry against the Idaho shooting was not from locals, but from other parts of the country. You can walk down the street in Teton Valley and see lots of evidence that much of the community does not care how animals are treated; from animals that receive relatively good care that are left to roam the town unaccompanied, to animals that are chained up outside for hours. It puts me in a emotional and moral difficulty. Even if I had the resources to take care of all the mistreated animals, I don’t have the backbone to steal someone’s dog. The last I knew the local animal rescue was barely getting by and may have already closed.
To me shooting your neighbor’s dog is no different than shooting your neighbor, but I know that neither the legal system, nor most people, agree with me. To me life is life. I don’t understand how a sentient being can place more value on the life of one species over another.