Humane Society Urges Action on "Horrific" Cruelty Case
www.wsav.com
October 28, 2005, SAVANNAH, GEORGIA -- The Humane Society of the United States is calling it one of the most horrific cases of animal cruelty they have ever seen and now they are urging the Chatham County District Attorney to impose a harsh punishment for the crime.
Savannah-Chatham Police said 33-year-old Akelo Kenyatta Stone was arrested last Friday for allegedly starving one dog to death and severely malnourishing another at his Savannah home on Cloverdale Drive.
"It's really something out of a horror film," said Deputy Manager of Cruelty Issues for the Humane Society of the United States, Peter Wood. "The fact that an animal could be chained with no escape and no hope day by day, week after week, month after month, slowly dying and then to find skeletal remains is just disturbing."
Wood said the penalties for animal cruelty in Georgia are not as strong as they should be. (Currently Georgia statutes indicate animal cruelty is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $1000 fine and up to one year in jail.) That's why he wrote a letter on behalf of the HSUS to Chatham County District Attorney Spencer Lawton on Friday. Wood urged Lawton to "seek meaningful prison time, mandatory psychological counseling and a prohibition on caring for or owning animals" if Stone is convicted.
"Anyone who would allow their animal to slowly starve to death while they sat in the comfort of their own home needs to pay a price for their depraved indifference," said Wood.
A Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Department police report indicated on Friday, October 21st police found the skeletal remains of the head of a deceased dog still attached to a chain in the backyard of Stone's home. Another dog they found in the backyard was "badly malnourished." A veterinarian later determined the dog needed to be put to sleep.
In the report police said Stone told them he was allowing one of his co-workers to keep the two dogs at his house for the last three weeks. But police said Stone's girlfriend told them the dogs were Stone's and had been at the home for 3 months.
On Friday, Stone was in the Chatham County Jail on an $8300 bond.
Stone has been charged with two counts of cruelty to animals and one count of abandoning a dead dog on private property.
