Horses stabbed, slashed
Tarrant, TX (US)Incident Date: Wednesday, Nov 29, 2006
County: Tarrant
Disposition: Open
Suspect(s) Unknown - We need your help!
Deputies say they think someone is attacking horses after two in southern Tarrant County were found cut with sharp objects.
Horse owner Melissa Orton was shocked when she came home in late November and found one of her favorites standing in blood. "I found her slashed," she said with her hand moving along a 14-inch row of stitches on the animal's lower right hand side. "[The flesh was] hanging down to her rib cage with a straight cut laceration."
The cut nearly hit a lung. The vet told them the cut was from a very sharp instrument and looked intentional. The Orton's searched for something the animal might have injured itself on but found nothing.
Then, they found the mare. A puncture wound nearly severing a major artery. This time they found where the horse had struggled -- and there were human footprints.
"I called the police on the second one because now I really believe that someone is maliciously, evilly, doing this to my horses," Orton said.
Deputies say they think there were attacks, but there's not much they can do. State animal cruelty laws exempt horses, and cows, pigs and goats. An attack like this one might earn the attacker a ticket for damaging property.
"It's extremely frustrating. It makes absolutely no sense," says Randy Turner with the Texas Humane Legislation Network. "You have all these horrible acts of abuse going on around the state and the abusers go unprotected."
Ranching and hunting groups have fought changes in the law. They fear the changes are targeting them. But to people like Orton, that doesn't make sense.
"This is the biggest horse state probably in the U.S.," Orton said. "I can't believe they don't have a law to protect the animals!" References« TX State Animal Cruelty Map
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