J.T.T., a 56-year-old resident of Bridle Path Lane in the Hunter’s Ridge subdivision at the south end of Flagler County, was arrested on Monday and charged with a felony count of animal cruelty causing death following his admission to shooting a neighbor’s dog that had bounded onto his property.
The incident took place on Nov. 5. J.T.T. told Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies he shot the dog, called Dina, with a .22 rifle he’d retrieved from his shed. He said he was at the back of his property at the time with his children. The dog crossed onto the property and allegedly became aggressive with the children. (One of the children is a teen, the other is younger.) The arrest report makes no reference to Dina attacking the children or J.T.T., who walked toward the front of the property, where the dog had gone, and fired.
The gunshot is audible in surveillance footage obtained by sheriff’s deputies, “and the dog is observed running south in front of the fence line between the property line and the road immediately after this single gunshot,” the arrest report states. “The dog is then observed attempting to get under the gate at the driveway of 332 Bridle Path Ln. where she got stuck and laid until the residents notified [its owner] and removed the dog. Additionally, in the video, the dog is heard yelping and whimpering immediately after the single gun shot is heard.”
Additional footage revealed that Dina was on the Bridle Path Lane property near the front gate entrance. “It should be noted there is no one around Dina and there were no sounds or signs of someone in distress during this surveillance footage,” the report states. “Approximately 20 seconds into the surveillance footage, a gun shot is heard coming from the direction of 344 Bridle Path Lane near the back of the property. Immediately after the gun shot is heard, a dog is heard yelping and crying.” Nine seconds later, Dina is seen heading from the driveway of J.T.T.’s property in an attempt to head toward a different nearby property.
The dog got stuck under the fence, and died there. Dina’s owner at first was unsure about the cause of death. Picking up the dog, he noticed blood on his hands, and when searching for an injury, found one entry point from a bullet, on Dina’s right shoulder.
The surveillance then shows a juvenile boy running from the rear of J.T.T.’s property towards the front entrance where Dina was prior to being shot. J.T.T.’s daughter is observed walking form the rear of the property to the front as well, as she appears to be speaking on a cell phone.
J.T.T.’s wife told deputies she had not seen or heard the incident. She told them that a dog continuously runs onto her property, goes through recycling bins, snatches shoes from the back porch and is occasionally aggressive with barking, in one case preventing her daughter from getting out of her car. J.T.T. and his family have a dog of their own, Buddy, which happened to have been captured in different footage moments before the shooting, running after a golf cart with juveniles aboard. (J.T.T. two weeks ago was cited for letting a dog run loose in the neighborhood.)
An Army veteran, J.T.T. has been battling cancer and is, according to his wife–in a voice mail she left for a neighbor, that deputies retrieved–terminal. He could not speak, and communicated with deputies with a whiteboard. He was briefly booked at the county jail Monday night and posted $2,500 bond. The State Attorney’s Office filed the third degree felony animal cruelty charge on Feb. 27. It is punishable by up to five years in prison, though in cases involving individuals with no prior record, if there is a conviction, it is more likely to result in probation not jail or prison, especially in cases of undisputed admissions and plea deals.
