var _sf_startpt=(new Date()).getTime() Pet-Abuse.Com - Animal Abuse Case Details: Dog beaten, kicked and dragged - Austin, MN (US)
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Case ID: 7193
Classification: Beating, Kicking/Stomping
Animal: dog (pit-bull)
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Abuse was retaliation against animal's bad behavior
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Dog beaten, kicked and dragged
Austin, MN (US)

Incident Date: Thursday, Jan 26, 2006
County: Mower

Disposition: Convicted

Defendant/Suspect: Travis David Leake

Case Updates: 4 update(s) available

A 22-year-old Austin man was charged with gross misdemeanor cruelty to animals Feb 3 in Mower County District Court for trying to beat his puppy into submission.

An Austin detective responded to an abuse call at Sixth Street and Sixth Avenue Northwest at 11 a.m. Jan. 26. He allegedly found Travis David Leake abusing his 6-month-old pure-bred black pit bull.

The criminal complaint states Leake had dragged the puppy on a leash, yelled at it as it lie motionless on the sidewalk, picked it up by the scruff of its neck and picked it up by the leash three feet off the ground. The detective reportedly believed the unresponsive dog was dead.

The detective intervened and examined the dog, which had bloody feet pads, open wounds on its hind legs and broken blood vessels on its interior thighs. The dog was not responding, but was breathing and had its eyes open.

Leake reportedly told the detective he had owned the dog for two weeks, and was following his pit bull-owner friends suggestion that he beat it into submission to keep it from turning on him when it grew older. Leake admitted he was frustrated that the puppy wasn't listening to him and had defecated in his apartment, but insisted he was only disciplining the animal.

The woman who called police approached and explained that her children saw the puppy being abused and told her about it when she got home. The children reportedly saw Leake kick the animal so that it was airborne.

The Williams Veterinary Clinic examined the animal and described it as extremely traumatized. The gross misdemeanor charge specifies the puppy received substantial bodily harm.

Leake is due to make his first court appearance Feb. 27.


Case Updates

An animal shelter saying no to free help? Yes, when the "volunteer" is an admitted animal abuser sentenced to the service.


Travis David Leake, 23, of Austin, pleaded guilty to a gross misdemeanor of animal cruelty and was ordered to perform community service including 100 hours at an animal shelter. He was accused of dangling a pit bull puppy by its collar, dragging it by its leash until its feet were bloody, and kicking it.


Mower County District Judge Donald Rysavy ordered the service with animals, a sentence that prosecutor Jeremy Clinefelter said seemed sensible "to have these people get a little better understanding of how to handle animals." But the Mower County Humane Society didn't want Leake at its shelter. "We are not trained to rehabilitate somebody like that," said Jane Roden, the society's president. "We really would not be comfortable leaving him on his own in an area to work with the animals."


Clinefelter said some other work would be found for Leake. Leake had no telephone listing in the Austin area. A message left with his attorney wasn't immediately returned.
Source: Examiner.Com - February 8, 2007
Update posted on Feb 9, 2007 - 11:56PM 
The president of the Mower County Humane Society has compared the sentence for a man convicted of abusing a pitbull puppy to "putting a pedophile in a nursery."

Travis David Leake, 23, of Austin, was sentenced Jan. 25 by Judge Donald Rysavy to one year of supervised probation and 200 hours of community service - including 100 hours at an animal shelter - for injuring a 4 1/2-year-old puppy in January 2006.

Jane Roden, president of the humane society, said they told the courts they "absolutely refuse to have him in our building."

According to the criminal complaint, three neighbors of Leake's, ages 9, 11 and 12, witnessed him on Jan. 26, 2006, abusing a black puppy by dragging it on the sidewalk and holding it several feet in the air by its leash in an effort to train it. Their mother called the police.

A deputy and animal control officer were dispatched to the residence at Sixth Street and Sixth Avenue Northwest, where they also witnessed the abuse.

The puppy was breathing, but unresponsive. It had blood oozing out of all four feet, broken blood vessels and damage to the sclera of the eye indicating face or head trauma, according to an evaluation that day from a veterinarian.

The dog was "extremely cowered," which the vet said shows "extreme submission or fright."

An unidentified family adopted the dog immediately and Leake was charged and convicted of felony animal cruelty.

Barry Rush, a certified Minnesota State Human Agent and vice president of the Mower County Humane Society, has seen many incidents of animal abuse with his work in Mower, Freeborn, Fillmore and Dodge counties.

He recalls a case in which two abused huskies were found; one had died of neglect and one, infested with maggots, had a shock collar grown into its neck. The abuser was charged with two felonies and sentenced to probation.

In another case, a Brownsdale man was charged with a felony for intentionally killing several cats by lacing their meat with antifreeze. His sentence was community service, which also meant working with animals at a shelter. The humane society refused him in that case too.

"It's a terrible, terrible way for an animal to die," Rush said.

"We want to see these guys do some jail time. I see so many homeless and abused and neglected animals," he said.

Rush is involved in the Minnesota Humane Federation, who works to get animal cruelty laws passed. Minnesota is one of the foremost states, he said, because it has a felony animal cruelty charge.

"We have to find a way to get the prosecutors and judges to take it seriously," he said. "When we pinpoint someone who has injured an animal, we want to hold them accountable."

As a humane agent, Rush assists law enforcement to determine if a statute has been violated, although he has no arrest powers.

Most of the time they deal with cases like owners leaving their pets out in the cold without shelter, "but sometimes you run against really blatant cases of animal cruelty," Rush said.

Roden said she has seen cases of a a dog's legs broken with a baseball bat and dogs with buckshot embedded in their faces, but sometimes "it's hard to tell if it's abuse or neglect."

"In general, that type of animal is brought in by someone who found it," Roden explained.

Those animals can usually be adopted, although they may be a "special needs" pet.
Source: Austin Daily Herald - Feb 1, 2007
Update posted on Feb 1, 2007 - 1:45PM 
A judge has ruled probable cause exists to try an Austin man on a gross misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty.

Travis David Leake, 22, has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor charges and is scheduled for a Sept. 22 pretrial hearing. He is accused of beating his 4 1/2-month old female pitbull mix into submission on Jan. 26.

Leake tried to get the gross misdemeanor charged dropped last month on grounds that the injuries the dog suffered did not rise to the level of "substantial bodily harm." Judge Donald Rysavy disagreed.

"The facts here are not ambiguous," the judge wrote in his ruling. "The animal in question suffered from a number of injuries, including bleeding in the sclera of the eye, indicative of head trauma. The animal was choked by being suspended from its leash off the ground. The animal was essentially unresponsive for a period of approximately 20 minutes."
Source: Austin Daily Herald - July 6, 2006
Update posted on Jul 7, 2006 - 9:24AM 
Court Administrator Patty Ball said Judge Fred Wellmann is returning the two dozen or so letters he's received concerning the case. The letters are considered ex parte communication, which may unduly influence the judge.

The last time the court received such a flow of unsolicited letters, Ball said, was when Wellmann reluctantly ordered a Siberian tiger destroyed in July 2001. Como, then housed at the BEARCAT Hollow animal refuge in Racine, had bitten a 7-year-old girl, and the euthanization order was required for a rabies test.

"It gets the attention of a lot of people," Ball said of cases involving animals.

Some of the calls police have received have been from people seeking to thank the family that reported the incidents, Chief Paul Philipp said. Others have said they wanted Leake to get the harshest possible sentence if he is convicted.

"It probably has drawn more comments and attention from the general public" than all of the other cases Austin police are working on, Philipp said.

Jeremy Clinefelter, who filed the case against Leake, said the attorney's office has received several letters, some demanding that Leake be charged with a felony rather than a gross misdemeanor.

"People don't understand the law," he said.

Someone who commits gross misdemeanor cruelty has inflicted "substantial bodily harm" to the animal under state law. That may include temporary but substantial disfigurement, loss of organ function or fracture.

"Great bodily harm" would result in a felony charge, Clinefelter said. In such a case, the injury creates a high probability of death, serious permanent disfigurement, or permanent or protracted loss or functional impairment of an organ or other bodily member.

PETA has called for jail time and a lifetime ban on owning an animal if Leake is convicted, as well as counseling. They suggested a psychiatric evaluation is appropriate because those who abuse animals once typically do it again, and may also victimize humans. Chief Philipp agreed arsonists and pedophiles, in particular, "often are animal abusers first."

Clinefelter said the demands aren't all realistic. In the case of a gross misdemeanor conviction, a ban on animal ownership would be limited to a maximum of two years, he said. State law does provide that a judge can impose community service and counseling, as well as require periodic visits of the person by an animal control officer.

If Leake is convicted, the burden will be on him to show the court he is fit to care for an animal. The 6-month-old puppy pitbull he is accused of beating in an attempt to train was adopted by an undisclosed Austin family shortly after it was taken to the city shelter.

Mower County Humane Society President Jane Roden said her group has taken steps to ensure Leake won't be able to adopt another animal. The widespread attention the case has received hasn't surprised her.

"People basically know that cruelty to either a human being or an animal is not to be tolerated," Roden said.

Philipp and Clinefelter each remarked that compassion from observers is often reserved for animal, rather than human victims.

"A lot of caring people get very emotional ... about abusing defenseless animals," Philipp said. "But you could make the same argument for children too."

Clinefelter noted a sexual abuse case involving a young girl that was charged about the same time as Leake's case.

"It's interesting that you get no calls when a victim was sexually abused, but you have all this interest because a puppy was ... ," he said, not finishing his thought. "People just have strong feelings about animals."
Source: Austin Daily Herald - Feb 25, 2006
Update posted on Feb 25, 2006 - 3:45PM 

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