Eisenhower High School student Jerraud Dijon Routte is facing felony animal cruelty charges after being accused of hitting his 6-month-old goat until it bled.
Routte, 17, won't be allowed to participate in next month's FFA livestock show, and he has been removed from the school's FFA club, pending the outcome of the case, said Mike Keeney of the Aldine school district's public information office. Routte was scheduled to be in 262nd District Court. Alice Morales, Routte's attorney, contends he has done nothing wrong. "My position, of course, is that (he) is innocent, and the case is overblown," she said. "He was training his goat. He was trying to make it walk in circles and he was using (livestock training) techniques to do that. "It was not anything excessive, nothing more than he needed to train his goat."
The complaint was filed on Jan. 13, 2006 by Aldine ISD police. The incident occurred on Jan. 3, 2006 in the school's agricultural barn, 2625 W. Mt. Houston, while Routte was grooming his goat in preparation for the show set for Feb. 8-10, 2006, Keeney said. There were at least two other students in the barn at the time who witnessed Routte training his goat and asked him to stop, Keeney said.
Agriculture students can use the barn after school to work on projects. There was a surveillance camera in the barn, Keeney said, adding the tape from that camera is with the Harris County district attorney's office. No teachers were at in the barn, at the time, said Leticia Fehling of Aldine ISD's public information office. The incident occurred after school, and she said it was not out of the norm for students to be there at that time to feed, exercise or bathe the animals.
Routte was arrested on Jan. 17, 2006. He went to court, and a $2,000 bond was set. He was released Jan. 18, 2006. Under state laws, animal cruelty is defined as intentionally harming an animal or failing to act when an animal is hurt or harmed. Routte is charged with a section of the statute that deals with animal torture. "Everything I've looked up on torture deals with inflicting severe punishment solely for the purpose of inflicting severe punishment or to get information from someone. This is not what he was doing. He was training his goat," said Morales, who has not yet seen the surveillance tape from the barn.
If convicted of the felony animal cruelty charge, Routte could be sentenced to 180 days to two years in prison and fined as much as $10,000, according to the state penal code. Franklin Higgins is the head of Aldine ISD's career and technological education programs, a position he has held for about 16 years. He was one of the district's agricultural teachers for nine years before that.
In his 25-year career, he said this is the first time he has ever known of an Aldine student being charged with animal cruelty stemming from participation in FFA or any of the district's agricultural programs. Agricultural students and FFA club members are trained on how to properly care for their animals, Higgins said. The instruction includes how to train, feed, groom and walk the animals. "These kinds of things are gone over with the students by the agricultural teacher," Higgins said.
The goat could be returned to Routte pending the outcome of a civil hearing on its custody, said Morales. Routte could be allowed to rejoin FFA if he is cleared. Neighborhood MapFor more information about the Interactive Animal Cruelty Maps, see the map notes.
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