Boy watches in horror as teens hang his dog
Edmonton Journal
Sun Feb 03 2002 14:37:13 ET

A 10-year-old boy had to watch in horror Saturday afternoon as the dog he had grown up with was hanged from some playground equipment by a group of teens.

``I've never dealt with anything like this before,'' said Const. Mike Moulds of the RCMP. ``This is quite disturbing to think that people could do this.''

The attack happened at a schoolyard in the Edmonton suburb of St. Albert.

The boy was playing with his dog, Sheba, on a slide at around 2 p.m. when the teens approached.

Moulds said the teens took the eight-year-old German-shepherd cross from the boy and used the leash to hang it from the top of a piece of equipment.

When police arrived the dog was dead. The boy's mother, who only wanted the family's first names used, told the Edmonton Journal that her son David had been crying uncontrollably since the dog was killed.

``There are sick kids out there and they need help and they need to come to justice,'' said Donna, David's mother. ``They traumatized my 10-year-old son. He blames himself for this because he couldn't do anything.''

David told Donna that, when the boys approached, they were taunting him.

David yelled for help and ran to a nearby skating rink when they hanged his dog.

He found a stranger with a cellphone ``and said `please call my mom and dad because my dog is strangling,''' Donna said.

Moulds said officers have fanned out looking for information on suspects, but no arrested had been made as of Saturday night.

END

This stuff makes me want to throw up. What kind of person would treat their fellow man or let an animal die in vain like this. I hope to get the chance to straighten a few of these buttheads out. Where are these kids parents?

These kids ought to be tried as criminals ...

__________________
... Kerry

126 tailed by a 203, 129 leading the pack.

Howdy All,
You hope someone hears one of these teens bragging about it and turns them in or one of them looks into the eyes of their own dog and does something about it.

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Frank X. Morris
17 Kia Niro
08 Jeep Wrangler 4 door unlimited

That's disgusting. These people need to be made an example of with some type of rediculously harsh punishment.

__________________
Ali Al-Chalabi

2001 CLK55
1999 Dodge Ram 2500 Cummins Diesel
2002 Harley-Davidson Fatboy
Merlin Extralight w/ Campy Record

Howdy Ali,
This is one of the times I want the animal rights people to crawl out from under their rocks and do something.

__________________
Frank X. Morris
17 Kia Niro
08 Jeep Wrangler 4 door unlimited

This is too close to home. Isn't St Albert, Alberta where Blackmercedes lives?

Thanks Blackmercedes, I never knew Bagehot was a person, I just thought it was a weird column in the Economist.

I don't often place the redfaced guys in my posts, but this world needs help when a 10 year old little boy in a small town in Alberta, Canada can't play with his dog in peace in a public park.

On the other hand, we all need to understand where we are and what's going on around us in real-time. I would never let my son be alone in a public park or any other place in this world, other than our cul-de-sac, where there is always a parent watching out for the kids. I might ease up when he's tough enough to kick my ass, but I doubt it...

This world sucks. Mothers drown their kids, kids kill each other, and dads kill their kids and wife before finally killing themselves. The most heinous act I can remember was the father who jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge with his baby daughter in his arms. But it isn't just current times, we are historically violent, insane, and sometimes dangerous to even the ones we love the most.

I have a tendency to react like John. I see the tagline, and ignore the story. I don't want to know the grim details. I don't want to cry for an innocent who was not protected. I ask myself what kind of monsters need to print or read this crap. But we do need to know about these things so we can rise up against the people who do these things, and try to protect the children who depend upon us to be there to defend them. We need to know so we can be on guard to protect our own loved ones, the ones who innocently assume that they are safe as long as we are there to protect them.

Who among us would do otherwise?

John, this is your backyard. I have often said that we could all make a big difference if we just cleaned up our own backyard and helped our neighbor with his. Don't let this pass. Get pissed off and demand action from the local authorities. You can be an awesome adversary, and have already proved to be a strong voice for equality and justice. I suspect that you will take care of business, by doing all you can to help make your community safe for Catrina's future.

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Scott Longston
Northern California Wine Country...
"Turbos whistle, grapes wine..."

John(Blackmercedes) this is no attack on you, but I spent the last two summers in Canada. I was surprised at how similar Canada and the USA are and I was shocked with how similar they are.

I talked to many black and east indian people(or visible minorities as a lot of Canadians call them) who told me they would never live in Alberta because Alberta was redneck. Indeed most of the reports of synogogue burnings and teenage stabbings I read about were from Alberta. I have been to Edmonton and Calgary and to me they were quite different places. Edmonton seemed layed back and Calgary seemed a little hostle. One thing that shocked me about western Canada was that while there wasn't a lot of USA style crime, there seemed to be a lot of vandalism in small towns. Another thing about western Canada I noticed was how native Indians lived in like ghettos. They lived isolated on the edge of town, unable to find work and resorting to drugs. The native Americans I have visited in the USA seemed to be more part of the community.

As far as poverty, I saw people in Newfoundland and NOva Scotia living in rundown housing that would not have been out of place in Mississippi. As I was told in Newfoundland, many people in whats called the outports only have work for six months of the year.

I even saw black ghettos(although small by US standards) in Nova Scotia, blacks who went to Nova Scotia during our revolutionary war and stayed there even though they now are facing discrimination that they claim is far worse than what they would face in the USA as there are really few laws to counter their plight which goes largely unnoticed(I , for one, was real surprised to see blacks in Nova Scotia)


No place is perfect. An executive making $20millon a year may not be the Canadian way, but it is the way of the world. There are a lot of doctors in the neighborhood where I grew up and many of them are Canadians who came to the USA for better pay, and lower taxes. At my college many of the science profs are Canadians who came here for the same reason. HIgh-salaried execs may not be the Canadian way, but it seems it will have to become the Canadian way in order to keep the Canadian way you know.

I'm glad I had two summer exchanges in Canada. I learned a lot. All I had really known about Canada before I went there was what I heard from Canadian immigrants---taxes were too high. We read about Pierre Trudeau in high school and I just imagined every Canadian was like him, I really learned a lot. If you were alive in the 1970s you must have been very proud of him.
Again, this is just my two cents. I like your comment that communities that are polarized (rich or poor) tend to suffer from crime and "other social disorders"

I'm gonna preface my post the same way James did. This is no attack against you James, but I think we should reserve judgement about how other communities should choose to live unless we're part of that community. It's really really difficult to understand a culture without having been part of the culture itself, just as it's difficult to study a language without at some point immersing oneself in that language. We've come to realize now, after years and years of trying to be "objective," that we really do not have a priveleged position in the universe as once thought. This means we can't observe anything without affecting what we observe.

I find it funny that Canadian Professors come here for better pay. If they want better pay they should perhaps go work at McDonalds!

Kuan

Yes, Kuan, you're right.

My take on things like this is that some people just do not take life seriously enough. People think that everything is a joke, especially is punishments are too leniant. And to top it off, with our US legal system, you can usually find someone else to blame.

People need to get real and learn that there is actually a term in the English language called personal responsibility.

__________________
Ali Al-Chalabi

2001 CLK55
1999 Dodge Ram 2500 Cummins Diesel
2002 Harley-Davidson Fatboy
Merlin Extralight w/ Campy Record

John,

How do you figure that a varied neighbourhood with a wide variety of incomes and a strong middle class is the solution to crime? Are you saying this from a purely statistical point of view or is it based (more or less) on social theory?

Kuan

It's hard to belive that there are people like those kids without any moral, feelings and compassion for anything or anyone...

There is a question in my mind everytime that I hear a sad story like this...

Where are the parents of these kids ?

So sad to realize that we are living and sharing our world with people with nothing else than bad intentions...

Hope God protect our kids !

__________________
Ernesto Molina

1993 500E Pearl Black / Alpaca Grey
2001 E55 AMG Brilliant Silver/ Anthracite
2007 SL55 AMG Black / Anthracite

John,

Well, this thread has wandered quite a bit, and I don't know how it got this far in left-field, but here goes....

I agree with some of your ideals, but socialistic government can never work in the long-term....Human nature makes it impossible. Regardless of how a government is set up, there will always be over-achievers and freeloaders, and under socialism the over-achievers will be underpaid and the freeloaders will be grossly overpaid. And every variation in between. People will only endure those circumstances for a time, until a more fair system is demanded.

Barring any mental or physical handicap, failure is a CHOICE! Or more accurately, a series of choices. The US (or anywhere else, really) has not CHOSEN to have huge neighborhoods for "warehousing of the poor", the poor choose to congregate and REMAIN there! For every sob story of someone who is stuck in the "'hood" or a small town, or just "can't get ahead", there is a success story from someone from the same place who had the drive and determination to better themselves.

I am FAR from rich, believe me, but I do not begrudge the wealthy one bit. That kind of money doesn't fall from the sky, it is EARNED, and if you earn it, you deserve it, and the lazy freeloader down the street who won't work DOES NOT.

Getting back to the original post, I agree that a VERY harsh punishment is appropriate, none of that "they're just juveniles, send them to therapy and put them on probation" bullsh**t. Where are all those anaimal rights fanatics when you REALLY need them?

Just my 2 cents....OK, maybe 3 cents....

Mike

__________________
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1979 300 SD
350,000 miles
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1982 300D-gone---sold to a buddy
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1985 300TD
270,000 miles
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1994 E320
not my favorite, but the wife wanted it

www.myspace.com/mikemover
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Tuesday, February 5, 2002


http://www.canoe.ca/CNEWSLaw0202/04_dog-sun.html

Boy cried woof!

Now says teens weren't involved in dog's death
By RAQUEL EXNER -- Edmonton Sun



Ten-year-old David Barney holds the leash of his dog Sheba. (Edmonton Sun, Christine Vanzella)
EDMONTON -- A 10-year-old boy confessed to police last night that he lied about three teens hanging his dog in front of him at a St. Albert playground on the weekend.

David Barney told police he tied his dog to the top of a slide, then told his dog to stay while he went down.

Sheba, the family dog, didn't listen and tried to jump onto the slide - hanging herself in the process.

"I'm sorry for lying," said a subdued David last night, vowing to never lie again.

"I thought my parents would be mad at me. (I've learned) if you lie, you'll get into trouble," said David.

His mom, Donna, said she was also crushed by the revelation, because the story gained international attention.

People wanting to help the family were calling the house, the local RCMP detachment and The Sun offering reward money and replacement pets.

"I'm hurt because he lied," she said. "We thought he was telling the truth. It was an accident, and we're not mad at him.

"I hope people understand ... we're really sorry, and thanks to everyone for their concern."

But now she's afraid of repercussions. "I'm really scared people will take their anger out on my son, my husband and myself.

"I don't need to be followed down the street and swore at."

RCMP Cpl. Kelly Anctil said she's not mad at David, even though the office fielded between 400 and 500 calls from across North America. They even received e-mails from concerned folk in Finland.

"In one way we're relieved ... there isn't three boys running around doing something as horrible as the accusations."

But she did note David could have been charged with mischief if he'd been older.

He confessed to an RCMP composite artist who was trying to do sketches of the suspects.

Ian Toon, a district manager for PJ's Pet Centres - which had already collected thousands of dollars in reward money - said he was shocked and angry.

"It's very disappointing. That was quite the show the little boy put on. We all fell for it, because we all love animals."

On Saturday afternoon, David took the family dog to a playground at Sir Alexander Mackenzie elementary school, less than half a block from his St. Albert home.

He claimed three male teenagers came across him playing with his German shepherd-cross and used Sheba's leash to hang her from a slide, strangling the dog while he watched.