Animal cruelty can lead to crimes on people, investigator saysJudi Villa
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 8, 2007 12:00 AM
The horse on the corner is too skinny, the caller said.
Harvey Redman, an investigator with the Maricopa
County Sheriff's Office, knew little else as he
climbed into his pickup truck and headed west.
For the past six years, the sheriff's office has
dedicated a team of investigators to check out
thousands of animal-abuse reports that come in annually.
Officials say it's a way not only to educate the
public about the proper care of animals but also
to target abusers who could be working up to violence against humans.
"We're not going to tolerate people being cruel
to animals," Redman said. "We've all swatted a
dog for piddling on the carpet. We don't beat it
till it can't walk. There's a difference."
Some experts claim animal abuse is the starting
point of an escalation to child abuse, domestic
violence or murder and serial killing.
"It is a known fact that people who abuse animals
and escalate to killing animals are in the
infancy stage of graduating to killing people,"
said Capt. Dave Trombi, who oversees Sheriff Joe
Arpaio's Animal Crimes Unit. "If we can stop
something from progressing to a point where it
becomes crimes against people, then that's what we want to do."
Arpaio started the unit in 2000 after a series of
cat mutilations in Ahwatukee. Today, seven
investigators respond throughout the county to
reports of everything from no food and water to
animals being starved, beaten, tortured and killed.
Arrests have added up over the years. Some examples:
• In November, a Tonopah man was arrested and
accused of animal neglect after officials said he
failed to contact a veterinarian after his three
horses became "really skinny."
• In September, an Arlington man was arrested,
accused of five counts of animal cruelty after
investigators said he left two pigs and three
chickens without access to water. The man had
previously been placed on probation for not properly feeding his dogs.
• And in 2005, a Mesa man was cited for animal
cruelty after he used a bow and arrow to shoot a
neighbor's cat that had wandered into his yard.
About 25 animal-cruelty cases are prosecuted
annually in Maricopa County, said Deputy County
Attorney Tony Church. The cases range from
starving animals to such intentional cruelty as
beatings and stabbings to bestiality.
One man pleaded guilty to putting his wife's
puppy in a 200-degree oven, crippling it. He went to jail for six months.
Most of the people convicted wind up with three
to six months in jail plus probation with a
stipulation that they can't own, possess or
control an animal. Recently, Church said, he has
begun requiring defendants to attend a new animal-offender treatment program.
"The people who come through and do this sort of
thing are usually associated with some other
violent crime in the past or this is the starting
point and it mushrooms from here," Church said.
"These people are violent," he said. "Hitting
these kinds of cases head on not only reduces
violence against animals but reduces violence against humans in the future."
And so investigators check out every abuse
complaint that comes their way. A hotline fields more than 120 calls a month.
"If you like to bully and threaten, who's your
easiest victim? Animals," Redman said. "Animals
are easy, readily accessible, don't tell anybody,
nobody comes to see them. They have no friends,
no communication. You can beat on them until
somebody turns you in. What happens then? The
thrill isn't there. Then you need a little punch
to the thrill, and you escalate to people.
"It's going to continue unless we cut it off."
Still, a lot of the complaints turn out to be
educational, like the skinny horse Redman checks on, on a corner in Laveen.
She is 22 years old, with a bad hip.
"How are you?" Redman says softly to the Arabian.
"Can I look at your mouth? Can I?"
He clicks his tongue to get the horse to walk.
"Come on," he urges. "That a girl."
"Having somebody call is not necessarily a bad
thing," said Terrie Curtis, who owns the horse.
"It means somebody is looking, which is fine. On
the other hand, it lets me ask questions. 'How do
I do this?' . . . I will talk to any- body and say, 'How do I correct it?' "
Curtis' horse and a second one are fed twice a
day. While Curtis' horse is about 100 pounds
underweight, the other one is overweight.
Redman talks to Curtis about using feeders
instead of putting alfalfa on the ground, where
horses can ingest too much dirt. He suggests
separating the two horses during feeding.
"They look OK," Redman said to Curtis. "Just fatten her up a bit."
When it's necessary, animals are seized and
housed in a no-kill shelter in jail. In 2005,
investigators seized 137 animals. Last year, more
than 60 dogs, cats and horses were seized.
One dog was kicked so hard its hipbone was
broken. Twenty-two pit bulls were starving.
Inmates care for them until the animals are
either released to their owners or adopted.
And the abuse complaints don't stop:
Two dogs are chained in a pen. Their leashes are
mangled, preventing them from getting food and water.
A neighbor is putting out poison to kill birds.
A skinny dog can barely walk.
A horse has an infected eye.
There's a mutilated cat with its head hanging from its body by a thread.
"You can never imagine what people can do to
animals. The sky's the limit," Redman said. "The
sheriff has taken a stand that we will not
tolerate it. We will hook you up and take you to jail."
"When you have animal cruelty, you need to stop that immediately.
"
To report suspected abuse:
• Call the hotline at (602) 876-1681.
We've had quite a few visitors the last couple of weeks, to see the donkeys. Most of the donkeys have learned the routine, "unknown vehicle drives in driveway....... more than one person gets out........ the "head jenny & big boss" greet them in the driveway & stand talking......!!! After a few minutes of "people" chit chat, it's time to move in & start showing the people how cute we can be. Head jenny usually give them cups of timothy pellets to feed, as the people walk around visiting with everyone. All the donkeys have learned that it works out best to not push & try to get the people to feed the pellets just to them. Head jenny really gets mad..............!!!! Except for Benny, he's still working on his "crowd" manners. He tries to behave, but all those people, carrying cups of pellets, is almost more than a young donkey can stand. 
