The city of Smithfield appears to have a small animal control unit operating under the police department with no physical shelter. They do have what the Salt Lake Tribune describes as an “unshaded temporary holding kennel” outside where an ACO can place an impounded dog briefly before transporting the pet to an area shelter.
On Thursday, June 23, 2011, Smithfield ACO Brady Robbins reportedly picked up a 4 year old retriever named Lola and placed her in this outdoor kennel. After leaving the dog there, Mr. Robbins went on to “other tasks, including moving police department records to the city’s new police building”. When he returned to his AC duties on Monday, June 27, he found Lola dead in the pen from heatstroke. Mr. Robbins drove Lola’s body to the landfill and dumped it, then wrote the following in his log:
“I, Officer Robbins, had taken the dog to Cache Humane Society. The animal has been adopted by Cache Humane Society.”
Multiple witnesses who observed Mr. Robbins finding Lola’s dead body in the pen on June 27 reported the story to his superiors. Mr. Robbins resigned and this month was charged with one count of animal cruelty and one count of evidence tampering – both misdemeanors.
He “forgot” the dog for FOUR DAYS?
Jackass.
How do you that? How do you forget about a living, breathing, being? But I guess that’s a stupid question, because parents seem to forget that they’ve left their babies and children strapped into car seats and too many of them have also died from extreme heat. I just cannot fathom what many in the human race have become.
He forgot her for 4 days, then lied about it. What a jerk.
I say chain him in there for four days without access to the necessaries, and let him see what it feels like. There is no redemption for people like that. Just none.
That is at best criminal negligence, but this is beyond negligence, it’s careless disregard for a living, breathing being. When karma catches up to him it will perhaps find him completely forgotten in his adult diaper, in an old folks home, forgotten.
If there were people who saw him take the body out of the kennel, it’s odd that no one, in the days the dog was there, went close enough to the kennel to see that the dog was in distress. It’s normal for many (not all) people to walk up to a dog in a kennel and maybe try to pet it. It’s pathetic that no one else did anything to get the dog water, food, or shade in the days it was held there. I agree the jerk who put the dog there needed to be fired and prosecuted, but jeez, what about the rest of the people who work there?
Smithfield has a population of less than 10,000. Maybe they were all in Philadelphia at the time.
Not a place I’ll ever move to.
The City of Smithfield should take themselves in hand and make sure their holding facilities for animals are suitable. Also no one person should be responsible for an animal’s care as seems to be the case here. No question in my mind that Robbins was criminally negligent, but his superiors are also culpable.
Obviously not a good person, but one man isn’t enough to look after even a fenced yard if it’s a public facility for live animals.
When the owner learns of the dog’s demise, a law suit would be in order, for the ACO’s & township’s incompetance.