Police: Man dragged dogs with car, rope tied around their necks

“Sorry, don’t buy it, owner “William Wilkinson” said he put a rope around necks of dogs; but didn’t realise it would strangle them?? WTF…the word thick, stupid & irresponsible, come to hand! The guy shouldn’t be allowed to own such sentient beings, if he doesn’t realise rope, when pulled tight, around a neck; strangles!!!”

Updated: 3:52 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2014 | Posted: 1:23 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2014

WAYNE TOWNSHIP, Pa. —

A 59-year-old man is accused of tying rope around the necks of two dogs and dragging them by the hitch of his car last month in Wayne Township.

According to police, officers were called to the area of Dewey Avenue on July 27 for the report of a man dragging dogs with a rope using his vehicle.

A responding officer reported that he found the two dogs badly injured with multiple gashes. The ropes were still around both dogs’ necks.

According to an affidavit of probable cause, the dogs’ owner, William Wilkinson, told police the dogs got out of his yard while he was at the doctors.

The affidavit said Wilkinson said he couldn’t find anyone to help him when he located the dogs, so he tied the rope around the dogs and traveled about 2 mph with them tied to the hitch.

At one point, according to affidavit, Wilkinson said he stopped to give one of the dogs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Police talked with a witness who said he saw the dogs being dragged so he raced in to help. The witness told police he noticed one of the dogs was not breathing so he got a knife from his truck to cut the rope.

According to the affidavit, the witness told police he couldn’t get his fingers under the rope because it was so tight. The witness said Wilkinson eventually resuscitated the dog.

The witness then called police, who came to the scene. The affidavit said Wilkinson told officers dragging the dogs was an accident, and he didn’t know the rope would strangle them.

The dogs were taken to a veterinarian and are currently in an unspecified safe location.

Copy of Video link File:-http://www.wpxi.com/videos/news/police-say-man-tied-rope-around-dogs-neck-dragged/vCpx3f/

Channel 11’s Jennifer Tomazic is working on uncovering more information about this story. Look for her full report later tonight on Channel 11 News at 5.

News Link:-http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/police-man-dragged-dogs-car-rope-tied-around-their/ng9m2/

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Feds Bring First Case Under New ‘Animal Crush’ Video Law

A Houston man and woman were indicted Wednesday for producing “animal crush” videos, the first federal case brought under the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010, which was passed after the Supreme Court ruled that a previous version of the law violated the First Amendment.

The U.S. attorney in southern Texas charged Ashley Nicole Richards, 22, and Brent Justice, 51, who are already facing state animal cruelty charges, with producing eight videos that allegedly involve the torture and killing of puppies, chickens and kittens, according a release from the federal prosecutor’s office. Richards and Justice face five counts of animal crush charges and two obscenity charges.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office of Southern Texas confirmed the Houston case is the first in the nation brought under the revised law.

In April 2010, the Supreme Court decided 8-1 in U.S. v. Stevens to strike down Section 48 of Title 18 of U.S. Code as unconstitutional.

The code, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion of the court, penalized “anyone who knowingly ‘creates, sells, or possesses a depiction of animal cruelty,’ if done ‘for commercial gain’ in interstate or foreign commerce.”

That case involved a man who sold videos of dogfighting and of dogs attacking other animals. He challenged his indictment on the grounds that Section 48 violated the First Amendment.

Though the government argued the code was necessary for cases of “animal crush” and animal fighting videos, the court held “a law may be invalidated as overboard if ‘a substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional.’” The court, therefore, did not discuss whether animal crush videos were a special case that could warrant an exception to the First Amendment.

“We … need not and do not decide whether a statute limited to crush videos or other depictions of extreme animal cruelty would be constitutional,” Roberts wrote for the court.

The court invalidated the law altogether as overboard, prompting Congress in September of that year to pass the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010, which specifically prohibited animal crush videos and defined them as “any photograph, motion picture, film, video or digital recording, or electronic image that:

(1) depicts actual conduct in which one or more living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians is intentionally crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled, or otherwise subjected to serious bodily injury;

(2) is obscene.

The “and obscene” provision would be key if the statute were challenged anew, said First Amendment expert and University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone.

“[Congress] passed this very complicated law that does not add anything to the scope of what is criminal,” Stone told POLITICO. “So as long as we stipulate that the material has to be obscene to be prosecuted under the statute, then why don’t you just prosecute you under the obscenity statute?”

The reference to obscenity also appears to limit the statute’s application in several ways, including limiting it to videos that are sexual in nature.

Stone believes that if the case were to be brought to the highest court, the question at issue would be whether there is a legitimate reason to distinguish this type of obscenity from others.

With free speech restrictions, the government cannot constitutionally pick and choose what type of speech to restrict based solely on its content, as established in the hate speech case R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul.

Stone compares the animal crush statute to a law creating higher penalties for purveyors of homosexual obscenity as opposed to non-homosexual obscenity – the government in both cases would need to show why the distinction serves a societal necessity.

Stone said in defence of the law, as in the comparable issue of child pornography, sometimes the government punishes selling depictions of something cruel to take away the incentive for individuals to commit the cruelty in order to profit off of it.

The animal crush statute carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison; the obscenity statute carries up to five.

News Link:-http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/11/feds-bring-first-case-under-new-animal-crush-video-150700.html?hp=r2

Illegal slaughter house in Kamptee poses risk – The Times of India

NAGPUR: A state-level committee appointed on the direction of Supreme Court has recommended action against Kamptee Municipal Council (KMC) for allowing an illegal slaughter house, said to be one of the biggest in the state.

The state’s animal husbandry department was requested by the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), under the ministry of environment and forest, to conduct random inspections of at least 10 licensed slaughter houses every six months as per Supreme Court directions under the provisions of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960.

Accordingly, a six-member committee consisting of Dr S B Baseshankar, Dr D V Kadoo, Dr K S Bhide, Dr N N Zade, and two co-opted members of AWBI S N Kapoor and Abodh Aras inspected two slaughter houses – Bhandewadi and Kamptee.

On the slaughter house at Kamptee operating in Bhaji Mandi, the panel recommended AWBI to issue notice to the district collector and chief officer of KMC to stop the illegal slaughter of large animals. The panels said around 300 animals are slaughtered here daily ostensibly for domestic consumption but the meat is transported outside illegally. It is exported to Middle-East via Mumbai.

“The illegal business is thriving with blessings of local police and officials. Electric slicers have been installed to slaughter animals. It is shocking how MSEDCL has issued power meters for slicers in residential area,” asks local Congress leader Narendra Sharma.

Sharma says police express helplessness citing law and order problem. “But is the place above people’s health and environment? Water bodies are being polluted and people’s health is at risk,” Sharma said.

Cattle slaughter is allowed for domestic consumption but over the years meat export has become a lucrative business. The slaughter has no checks or certification from any authorized vet. Till the visit of the committee, municipal council used to issue ante-mortem certificates by a vet appointed by commissioner of animal husbandry.

However, ahead of the committee’s visit in April, the chief officer of KMC wrote to animal husbandry department informing there is no large animal slaughter house in Kamptee. Chief officer Ravindra Pandher says plans are afoot to shift the slaughter house outside the city.

KMC vice-president Shahajan Safahat admits it is a nuisance and not acceptable. “Earlier cattle was slaughtered for livelihood but now stakes are higher as beef is being exported. The number of cattle killed certainly doesn’t match local consumption. The slaughter house needs to be shifted elsewhere as it poses serious hazards,” Safahat says.

BJP MLA from Kamptee Chandrashekhar Bawankule says, “I’ve raised the issue several times in the House but the government is doing nothing. A group of 24 NGOs plan to file a petition against the slaughter house,” he says.

Of late, the traders have installed equipment even in households to bring every body part of the animals to use. “The processes to extract oil and cleaning skins creates stench in the area,” Bawankule said.

The MLA says police do not want to take action. Daily five truckloads of beef is transported from Kamptee but police cannot see it.

via Illegal slaughter house in Kamptee poses risk – The Times of India.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/Illegal-slaughter-house-in-Kamptee-poses-risk/articleshow/14279688.cms