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Dog beaten with hammer for barking
Pigeon Forge, TN (US)Incident Date: Friday, Jul 8, 2011
County: Sevier
Charges: Felony CTA
Disposition: Convicted
Defendant/Suspect: James Gurdon Saltonstall
A third extreme case of animal cruelty in the past two years has humane society director Jayne Vaughn concerned over the treatment of animals in Sevier County.
In the latest case, a Pigeon Forge man was convicted of killing a friend's young dog because the animal was barking while the man was staying at the house.
James Gurdon Saltonstall, 23, of 2310 Red Oak Drive in Pigeon Forge, was charged July 12 with aggravated animal cruelty. According to his incident report, Saltonsall used a hammer to strike the dog in the skull when the 9-month-old mixed breed was barking outside a home on Red Oak Drive early on the morning of July 8.
Vaughn said she'd seen pictures of the dog, and the incident left her disturbed. "That was a hideous, hideous attack that caused this dog's death," she said.
The address given for Saltonstall in the arrest report is the same address as the dog's owner. According to the report, "Saltonstall had (gotten) angry at the dog for barking." The witness ran upstairs to awaken the dog's owner, then came back in time to see Saltonstall throw the dog over a fence and leave the scene.
It was especially distressing, Vaughn said, to hear that Saltonstall had taken that action against someone else's pet because it wouldn't stop barking.
"My first thought was, what if it had been a baby crying?" she said.
Aaron Geroy was the person who saw the incident and called police.
The dog, Beethoven, had been barking because she wanted to come back inside, he said, and Saltonstall had complained before he got up, found a hammer and went outside. Geroy said he walked to the door and saw Saltonstall bludgeoning the animal.
"I kept telling him to stop and he wouldn't stop," he said.
He got the dog's owner, Randy Maxwell, who had been asleep in the house when the incident happened, and they told Saltonstall to leave.
"We told him to get the heck out, that we didn't want him here anymore," Geroy said.
Maxwell declined to be interviewed.
That incident, after another two years ago where two men took a pit bull into a wooded area and beat it to death, and a recent case in which four people �" two men and two juveniles �" killed several kittens, has Vaughn upset.
That the crimes occurred at all is distressing enough, but she noted that cruelty to animals is often a precursor to violent crimes against people, including murder, and three cases in such a short time is equally alarming.
"The number of aggravated animal cruelty cases we're seeing now is disturbing to me," she said.
Under state law, aggravated animal cruelty refers to conduct "carried out in a depraved and sadistic manner and which tortures or mains an animal, including the failure to provide food and water to a companion animal resulting in substantial risk of death or death." The charge is a Class E felony.
"The thing that is concerning to me is that we know people that can commit these types of violence against animals have the propensity to advance to humans, so we need to make sure that we're paying attention to these crimes and the perpetrators are getting the treatment and the punishment they need."
The two adults in the case involving the kittens were sentenced to spend 61⁄2 months in jail and to spend four years on probation for their crimes, along with community service and other punishments. They were also ordered to complete mental assessments.
Vaughn said it isn't clear whether the incidents are becoming more frequent or just being reported more often, but she encouraged people to report animal abuse to law enforcement authorities whenever they witness it.
"We need to make sure we're paying attention to these crimes," she said. References |
