Man Arrested For Brutal Dog Dragging Death At Colorado National Monument

Buddy the dog...brutally dragged to death

A man has brutally killed an innocent dog in what witnesses are claiming to be one of the most heinous crimes ever committed to an animal.

Steven Clay Romero, 37, a  Fruita,Colorado man is accused of dragging a dog to death on the  Colorado National Monument Thursday. He is being held without bond in lock-up, and will stay there over the holiday weekend.

According to Romero’s arrest affidavit, about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday a maintenance worker at Colorado National Monument saw tire tracks and drag marks in the snow leading up West Hill, past the Fruita entrance to the park. Two miles later, the worker saw the carcass of Buddy, a German shepherd-blue heeler mix, with a rope tied to its neck.

Buddy had obviously suffered on his way to his death. Buddy was a German Shepherd Blue- Heeler mix…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Cattle_Dog

The Denver Post is reporting these details on how the dog died...”The animal apparently was attached to the vehicle at the base of the west hill, and as the vehicle accelerated, first it was walking then it was running. It couldn’t keep up and was being drug and strangled as it got to the three-mile mark on the west hill,” she said.

Park rangers suggested that the dog may have been stolen from its owner by this sick perpetrator.

A Delta police report indicates a witness recorded the license plate of the suspect’s vehicle in the alleged dog theft, which tied back to a home in Fruita, according to the affidavit, which subsequently led to the arrest of  Steven Clay Romero.

Romero faces a maximum three years in prison, a fine up to $100,000 and a year of mandatory parole if convicted on a federal charge of felony cruelty to animals.

Romero was arrested six times in the past seven years by police in Montrose and Grand Junction on a variety of charges, including weapons offenses, traffic violations and drug distribution, according to court records. Five of the six arrests were in 2009. Romero was in Mesa County District Court on Thursday for a hearing on a drug and weapon-related case stemming from a Sept. 12 arrest at a local motel.

Years ago, there was a case in Texas where three Ku Klux Klan members had tied a black man,James Byrd, Jr., to the back of their pick-up, and dragged him for several miles, until his body fell apart….

(read the full account here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Byrd,_Jr.)

..and the perpetrators received the death penalty, as well as life in prison without the possibility of parole.

These two crimes are similar, and the only difference is that one involved the life of a human being, and one was a defenseless dog.

I hope that the same level of justice can be meted out in this terrible act of animal cruelty, and I find that it may be a good case to extend the value of life, to all of God’s creatures.

Severe justice must be served to prevent this type of crime from ever happening again.

Colorado National Monument

To read the full story of this sad account of man’s brutality to animals, and the arrest,…read the full story here…

http://www.kjct8.com/Global/story.asp?S=11750421

http://www.dailypuppy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&p=69196

To view the dead body of Buddy the dog, click on the thumbnail below….

Dead Dog 'Buddy'