Canine and feline victims of homelessness, neglect and/or abuse can find safe haven at the Maryland SPCA. While there, they may be cared for by Derrick Chambers – at least until he completes his court ordered 50 hours of work at the shelter. For background on Mr. Chambers, see the Unleashed blog:
Late in the afternoon of Aug. 6, neighbors said they spotted Derrick Chambers beating a miniature pinscher, clubbing the dog repeatedly with a pipe in the 4000 block of W. Franklin St. in West Baltimore. A min-pin is a small breed of dog that typically weighs less than 10 pounds. According to police documents, Chambers weighs 260 pounds.
When police arrived at the scene, they found the dog, lifeless, with a cord around his neck. He had been stuffed into a plastic bag that had been tossed into the bed of Chambers’ pickup truck.
Chambers, 48, told police he beat the 4-year-old dog because it had become “unruly,” nipping his finger and jumping on the back of his cat.
When police realized the dog was still alive — barely — they rushed it to the city animal shelter, where veterinarians found he had a broken right leg, shattered ribs, a broken jaw and missing teeth. He was bleeding from the head. Doctors euthanized the dog within the hour.
Mr. Chambers was charged with felony animal cruelty and faced up to 4 years in prison and $8000 in fines. At trial on September 8, the prosecutor agreed to drop all charges in exchange for 50 hours of community service.
Why the about face? Apparently Mr. Chambers’ attorney had advised the prosecutor that the tiny dog had bitten Mrs. Chambers – a previously unknown “fact” of the case. So I guess if the dog bit someone, it’s understandable about that whole beating with the pipe/suffocation thing.
And of course the most appropriate place for someone like Mr. Chambers to serve his community is at the animal shelter. The prosecutor didn’t bother to ask the Maryland SPCA if it was ok with them to have Mr. Chambers work at their shelter because heck, who wouldn’t want to sit in the break room with this guy and the shelter cat every afternoon? Good times.
[Executive Director Aileen Gabbey] said today that she received and denied an application from Chambers.
D’oh! That’s going to gum up the works for Mr. Chambers I would think. Maybe they can send him to work at local grammar schools for his 50 hours. But they prolly already have all those slots filled with pedophiles and child pornographers.
It’s so nice when they can find a punishment that fits the crime so well.
The public has got to start demanding that these demented types are removed from civilization.
I’m the one who always says that there should not be such a thing as “felony animal cruelty.” Might I also point out the fact that a misdemeanor conviction can put a person in jail for a solid year.
One of the basic problems is, particularly when your humane authorities seem to be nothing but rapacious, a person could be charged with a felony for legitimate hunting or farming practices, or for an accident. Also, the people who conduct the illegal raids use felony charges as a club to get people to give up their rights. Here’s a kicker: They’re the same people who we would ask to enforce the felony laws against abuse such as this case.
Now they’re going to get a lot of us mad enough to demand, in all caps and underlined, that animal abusers be convicted of felonies, and the next thing we know, we will still have “50 hours of community service” for someone who beats a dog with a pipe and we might see some people with felony convictions for “messy conditions.”
When they don’t know what to do with their toys, we take them away so that they can’t hurt people with them. We can’t get at the truly violent offenders and if we empower them with more power, they turn around and use it against people who are far less offensive or entirely inoffensive.
I hate to shift the focus from the fate of the animal to people, but … a grown man who escalates a “nip” from a dog into beating with a club is not stable. What are the odds that he does no violence to people?