Justice was done

Justice was done

On Tuesday, General District Court Judge Charles Foley accepted a guilty plea from Gustavo A. Lopez of Washington to a charge of maliciously wounding an animal.

Last month, Mr. Lopez, who is an employee at the Blue Rock Farm, across U.S. 211 from the high school, allegedly shot a German shepherd in the front leg with a shotgun. The dog ran off and was discovered by employees at Faith Mountain Company, a short distance down the road, who called Animal Warden Ray Pullen.

Mr. Pullen took the dog to a veterinarian, then returned later and charged Mr. Lopez with maiming the animal. The charge, however was dismissed in General District Court later last month. While the argument by defense attorney Douglas Baumgardner may have had legal merit, it did not seem to us that justice was done.

Warden Pullen and Commonwealth’s Attorney Peter Luke didn’t think so either, and charged Mr. Lopez again under a different statute. That charge led to the guilty plea this week. Mr. Lopez was fined $500, plus $344 restitution, and must perform 40 hours of community service.

We applaud the tenacity shown by Warden Pullen and Mr. Luke in refusing to allow this sort of behavior to go unpunished. Because of Mr. Lopez’s action, the German shepherd, who has since been adopted, will live the rest of his life with only three legs. The wound inflicted by Mr. Lopez was so severe that his left front leg had to be amputated at the shoulder.

Animals, particularly domestic animals like dogs, depend on their human owners for their needs. They trust and love us, and their faith is undeterred by sometimes unspeakably cruel conduct. Animal workers are familiar with tales of horribly abused animals which continue to respond to their owners, despite their cruelty.

We hope that the sentence imposed to Mr. Lopez will send a strong message to anyone else disposed toward such conduct that it will not be tolerated — at least not in Rappahannock County.

And we commend the effort of Animal Warden Ray Pullen, who has done much to improve the lot of the neglected and abandoned animals in our county since he was appointed to the position. Through his work with the volunteers from the Rappahannock Animal Welfare League, at least some of those animals have found loving homes instead of death at the dog pound.

We hope that the verdict against Mr. Lopez will encourage him, and Mr. Luke, to continue to aggressively prosecute such cases, and to continue their advocacy on behalf of the county’s abused animals. They are the only voices those creatures have.