A man had been arrested after shooting his neighbors’ dog in Florida over the weekend.
The incident happened on January 10th in Lake County, Florida, but the man in question was not arrested until January 16th.
According to Click Orlando, a woman had stepped outside to call her dogs when she heard a gunshot. A short time later, her dogs came home, but one of them was limping. The woman then went over to confront her neighbor, 58-year-old Curtis Jones, about the injured dog, and he admitted to shooting the animal.
When investigators arrived, they saw Jones and another man attempting to get into a semi truck in order to flee the scene, but officers stopped them and began questioning Jones. Jones then explained to deputies that he noticed the dogs digging through his trash can and shouted at them to leave and they ran off. He then went inside of his home to grab a shotgun and fired a few rounds at the animals, but says he only intended to scare them, not injure them.
When the injured animal was brought to the vet, the veterinarian explained to investigators that the dog had been hit with birdshot and had at least 80 pellets inside of its body, indicating that someone had fired directly at the animal. The dog died approximately an hour and a half after it arrived at the vet.
Jones is now facing a charge of aggravated animal cruelty.