Puppy punched, kicked, stomped - Parker City, IN

Friday, Sep 17, 2010

County: Randolph

Charges: Misdemeanor
Disposition: Alleged

Alleged: Dennis Howard Blankenbaker

Case Updates: 1 update(s) available

If a Parker City mother and daughter's allegations are true, a Yorktown man might have found something he dislikes more than ex-Vice President Al Gore.

Dennis Howard Blankenbaker, 48, was arrested last week after his girlfriend and her daughter reported he had brutally attacked their puppy, punching the dog three times in the face before kicking the animal and stomping on it.

According to a report filed by Bradley W. Roberts, Parker City's chief deputy, he was called to the girlfriend's home last Friday night, where he found that woman "crying" and her daughter "upset."

The girlfriend said Blankenbaker, who had apparently been staying at the home, was in the process of making dinner when she twice disciplined her puppy for urinating on the floor.

After the second incident, she said, Blankenbaker "became upset and then grabbed the dog and punched it in the face three times and then stood up and stomped on the dog and started kicking it."

The frightened animal ran under a bed, the witnesses told Roberts, but it was pulled out by its hind legs by Blankenbaker, who again punched and stomped the puppy before throwing it into a cage.

The girlfriend said she was "yelling at (Blankenbaker) to stop and he stated he was taking his stuff and leaving."

Roberts later found Blankenbaker at his parents' Yorktown home and arrested him on a preliminarily charge of cruelty to an animal. The Yorktown man was released from the Randolph County jail after posting a $5,000 bond.

The deputy reported Blankenbaker denied striking the animal, saying he had instead "just decided it was time to go so he did." In a Tuesday interview, Roberts said the puppy, believed to be a Labrador retriever under the age of six months, did not appear to be seriously injured.

Formal charges had not been filed in the case as of Tuesday, although the girlfriend and her daughter did file for protective orders against Blankenbaker.

The Yorktown man was convicted of battery in Hancock County in 2003 in a case that originally saw him charged with burglary and pointing a firearm. The next year, he was convicted of public intoxication in the same county.

He also had convictions for resisting law enforcement and drunken driving in Delaware County in the late 1990s.

In letters appearing on the editorial page of The Star Press, Blankenbaker in recent years has been a critic of ex-Vice President Gore's claims about global warming.

After Gore was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for those efforts, Blankenbaker suggested "Chicken Little and the Boy Who Cried Wolf" should be similarly honored.

Case Updates

A Yorktown man has now been formally accused of attacking his then-girlfriend's puppy. Dennis Howard Blankenbaker, 48, is charged with cruelty to an animal, a Class A misdemeanor carrying a maximum one-year jail term. Authorities alleged Blankenbaker on Sept. 17 punched, kicked and stomped on the woman's puppy in her Parker City mobile home after it twice urinated on the floor. An initial hearing is set Oct. 14 in Randolph Superior Court.

Source: The Star Press - Oct 6, 2010 Update posted on Oct 17, 2010 - 5:13PM

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