GEORGETOWN, S.C. — A Georgetown man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to putting two dogs in duct tape and throwing them into a canal.
Bobby Joe McConnell pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of ill treatment of animals.
Police say McConnell tied up two dogs with duct tape last July and dumped them into the International Paper canal in Georgetown County. Both dogs had belonged to McConnell’s family.
One dog died, the other was rescued by a fisherman.
The judge granted a local animal center ownership of the rescued dog, now named Dara, so she can be fostered or adopted out.
If it had been my dog, I would want the death penalty for this cretin; but let's keep things in perspective. Ten years is a lot of time for mistreatment of a piece of property when he could have assaulted a human and gotten less time.
This crime is horrific, to say the least, but 10 years?
We slaughter and torture millions of other animals every year. Where is the sentence for that crime?
mistreatment of a piece of property when he could have assaulted a human and gotten less time."
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That's probably because so many folks believe that animals (pets) can't defend or protect themselves and so are, by default, helpless against human cruelty.
Pets are seen to be placed on earth for our protection. A failure to proffer that protection is often seen as unforgivable by many folks.
I can bet my life that if it came down to it, you'd eat your pet too if the circumstances were right.
People have double standards when it comes to different animals. Cows, chickens, pigs, etc. are all defenseless. Some of these animals are (pigs) are more intelligent and just as loving and emotionally capable as small children, and yet we slaughter them by the million.
If we care so little about other animals, then it is ludicrous to send a man to prison for 10 years for actions against an animal that is relatively in the same category as those we subject to slaughter and indiscriminate suffering.
What should have happened is to have his body duct taped and tossed into the canal to see how helpless a situation it was for that animal. Maybe only then would he truely see what he did was just wrong.
Domesticated animals aren't human. You can raise pigs, chickens, and cows and kill them and eat them. Dogs were domesticated by humans from wolves they don't exist in nature without us. So we propagate them and destroy them to regulate the population (course all can interbreed). Now it doesn't mean some dogs can't survive in the wild but only those with the wild type wolf genes. We would kill a wolf if it attacked us. When I was younger this hunting club every year would put down dozens of dogs- spent thousands on-because the dog wouldn't hunt and the owner didn't want to feed them or propagate their bad genes. A lot of doctors, lawyers, judges, pastors, etc would be in prison now for participating in such behaviors. Sad world when our priorties are about dogs and not humans. World really has gone to the dogs. Who gives a crap-they are dogs. I see dead one on the side of the road all the time, and wild ones are a nuisance.
In our culture, we don't eat dogs. We don't duct tape cows and throw them in the water just so we can have a hamburger.
The article doesn't state why he committed this crime. We don't know if they were family pets, if he did this to "spite"his relatives, if he was just bored or what. I doubt that he will serve all 10 years. If he did this to defenseless dogs, what else is he capable of?
I love my dogs & I love my bacon, but there is a monumental difference.
Evolutionary speaking, killing for sustenance or safety is not wrong. I think humans often forget we are not the highest animal on the food chain. When a person is eaten by a lion, tiger, or shark, chalk it up to bad luck on an evolutionary scale - just as we should for the animal that was killed and eaten by us.
The difference is the intent.
If an animal is killed for sustenance (food, clothing, etc.) it is simply part of the circle of life. I think the Native American's practice of 'praying' over the animal that was hunted and killed is venerable. They take time to respect the animal for its abilities and to appreciate it for providing life to others. The atrocities that exist in the methods by which we currently bring food to our tables angers me too, but they have nothing to do with this.
Monster is the only word that comes to mind when I think of someone who kills intentionally for purposes other than sustenance or safety.
Well, I gotta tell ya, after reading all these differing comments, it really does make you think about the crime and the punishment.
Bottom line, though, is that I'd rather live any place that DOESN'T have someone like Bobby Joe McConnell as one of my neighbors. If he'd do that to a dog, there's no telling what he'd do to another person he wasn't getting along with.
That's a whopper as my grandfather would say. Michael Vick damaged much more in the physical sense, and what did he get? 23 months.
I'm no law expert, but it seems there would be a more fit punishment rather than make me pay to feed and house this loser.
if it came down to it, you'd eat your pet too if the circumstances were right."
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Skin*, I'll bet you would have been the life of the (Donner) party.
Wonder how old this guy is. Is he a serial killer in the making? That could explain the sentence.
and killing. I have not even read all the comments that are listed here but I have to say that 10 years are a good sentence - to remind the rest of the monsters that things like these are not tolerated in a civilized world (of course the civilization is going to Hades in a hand basket). He may not have to stay in jail for 10 years - maybe there are enough animal lovers in the jail that will help him out of his misery!
Wish there was more equanimity in enforcement, prosecution and sentencing in all areas of criminal activity. I couldn't get anything done about us being shot at and harassed on our own property for years, but boy, let a dog get hurt... I understand in part but as far as things being just in this world; I have always understood to be thankful when justice happens, because it doesn't always.
Two different jurisdictions, Autumn. That's all I can say.
Does pig bacon tastes better than dog bacon? I think the true difference is taste, lol. If dogs tasted better then pigs and cows, people would eat the heck out of them, no matter how loving they are.
No, we impale their legs by a hook, slit their throat, then let them bleed out till they die. Which is worse? I don't know, but they both end in death, that's for sure.
Aren't pigs and cows defenseless?
He may not have committed these crimes for sustenance, but killing animals for food is just as unnecessary. We just do it for taste. People have been, are currently, and will continue in the future to live without eating animal flesh.
And Darby, i'd starve to death before I ate my dog.
Good points skinanbonez.
But I have to say, people that are true vegetarians tend to be a bit... um.... ODD! Something to do with a lack of the proper kind of protein I suspect.
Let's see, beet greens or slow cooked, smoked, pulled pork BBQ. Beet greens or BBQ...
You and Darby. When do my spouse and I get to meet you?
You say that, but there are too many athletes, models, intellectuals, celebrities, Nobel laureates, etc. that the public love, respect and admire for your statement to be completely true.
Sure enough, there are some extremists and weirdos, but there are some extremists and weirdos in every facet of life.
I'll be the first vegetarian to tell you that meat tastes delicious, but your statement and mine only serves to further prove my point that eating animal flesh is a matter of the palate, and not of survival.
I'm thinking it should be at a place that serves steak and ribs, with an abundance of hops and barley type beverages to choose from.
skinanbonez,
Who says that love and respect has to be mutually exclusive of ODD?
skinanbonez,
There are all kinds of things that could be placed in the “yes or no, matter of survival vs palate column.”
I suspect that eunuch vegetarians, living a life of silence may have one of the highest life expectancy of any other compound group. Doesn’t necessary mean that's the ideal way for all to live their life.
Nothing against odd vegetarian eunuchs (because I really admire their “gumption”) but I suspect many would feel that's not really “living”.
Onto the greater point, we can debate the best lifestyle to live, but when government starts mandating the “proper” way to live (outside of the obvious), that's when true lovers of freedom should be alarmed.
And hence my problem with most odd vegetarians, they don't just like the way they live their own lives, they wish to mandate their way of life to the rest of us.
all life is given by God, even the life in an animal that we eat.
Then let me add that the public also perceives them to be normal, and most people wouldn't expect they are/were vegetarian.
My point was not at all about living an out of the ordinary lifestyle. Nor is life expectancy the issue either. There are healthy and unhealthy vegetarians.
The only reason there are animal cruelty laws in America at all is because part of the population pushed government for laws against it. Mandates, if you will. So at a subtle level, and much more blatant for the man sentenced to 10 years for harming dogs, our lives are already being mandated, but only because the people wanted those mandates in place.
Not all people even feel the need for laws against even dogs. Even their own pet dogs, as Bizkit evidenced by his own testimony.
The only reason vegetarians might even remotely wish others would practice vegetarianism is because of the disconnect of compassion that the general meat eating population has between animals that are relatively equal physiologically. It's simply hypocritical, and ultimately it degrades the compassion of the population.
Pigs and cows both exhibit compassion. Many other animals we consume also show compassion. Most importantly, they show sentience. This is the characteristic that makes living creatures flee from pain and suffering, as well as flee for there life in the face of danger. Pigs, dogs, cows, and cats all exhibit these tendencies.
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