We usually receive mug shot renderings of murderers and rapists, but the picture at left is a first for the state of New Jersey. Sent to Baristanet by Paterson’s Chief Animal Control Officer John De Cando, he says it’s the first-ever sketch of a suspected animal abuser. A $7,500 reward is being offered for information leading to arrest and conviction.
De Cando (whom we last heard from about an abused beagle pup) says while Sean Barber and a friend were visiting Paterson falls they saw a man tie up an ailing boxer to a fence then abandon it. Barber protested, but the suspect took off saying “my wife and I don’t want this dog no more.” Barber’s 911 call brought De Cando on the spot within ten minutes. “The dog was in bad shape, bleeding. I brought her to the pound, and we discovered the dog was pregnant. She delivered eight pups, but only two survived, ” De Cando says.


“A couple of weeks went by and I was thinking, how can we catch this guy,” says de Cando. Thinking it might be a long shot, he asked Detective Sgt. Kenny Collazo if he’d send down a police artist for an animal abuse case. Collazo, a forensic composite artist, sat with Barber for seven hours…when the sketch was completed, Barber said “that’s him.”
Officer De Cando has distributed flyers, gotten local TV and
newspaper coverage, but still needs “someone to drop the dime” on the suspect. “The suspect walked to the falls,” he might live nearby, he said. If you have information, call Passaic County SPCA at 973-773-0459 or Paterson Animal Control at 973-881-3640.
The abandoned dog, both her pups, and Champ the beagle have all been adopted and been nursed back to health.

43 replies on “Wanted For Animal Cruelty”

  1. Now you know I like animals better than most people. Good for the artist and DeCando and I hope they catch this creep.

  3. Shouldn’t that be: “my wife and ME don’t want this dog no more.”?
    Glad to hear the poor dog and her pups found good homes.

  5. I would suggest a public flogging for the perp when he’s caught, Miss Martta.
    And for the person who suggested that this is a “waste” of law enforcement resources, I honestly suspect that the ‘Great Scorer’ (thank you, Grantland Rice) will be as interested in how you treated the least of his creatures as in how you played the game, comes THE day.

  6. It’s been proven that those who abuse animals are more likely to kill or abuse humans. Not a waste of police resources.

  7. Thanks, Spot & Cathar. Yes, it’s no longer idle speculation, this connection between animal cruelty and human cruelty. It’s been proven, through interviews with serial killers and hardened crimals. Almost all of them abused animals at one point, usually when they were young.

  8. Thanks, Spot & Cathar. Yes, it’s no longer idle speculation, this connection between animal cruelty and human cruelty. It’s been proven, through interviews with serial killers and hardened criminals. Almost all of them abused animals at one point, usually when they were young.

  9. Yankee fan… figures.
    It’s important to look on the bright side, which is that little dog is better off with a new home and people who love her then with this human refuse.

  12. That is indeed a Mets cap. And it looks big enough to hide a small animal inside. I wouldn’t be surprised if therre were a small family of hamsters under his hat. I feel bad what this guy might be planning on doing to them.

  13. I have always believed there is a special place in the hereafter for people like this.
    Hopefully the hefty reward entices someone to rat this guy out.

  14. People who abuse animals are the lowest of the low. They are pond scum. I hope someone ties this guy to a fence in the middle of the desert with no water.

  15. People who abuse animals are the lowest of the low. They are pond scum. I hope someone ties this guy to a fence in the middle of the desert with no water.

  16. People who abuse animals are the lowest of the low. They are pond scum. I hope someone ties this guy to a fence in the middle of the desert with no water.

  17. People who abuse animals are the lowest of the low. They are pond scum. I hope someone ties this guy to a fence in the middle of the desert with no water.

  18. Cathar, the world must be turning upside down… I’ve seen 2 posts from you in the last couple of days with which I completely agreed. (This being one, and your post re the Valencia murder being the other.)
    I’ve got nothing to add, really, except my hopes that this creep will be caught and face appropriate consequences.

  19. Kate, the name of the song a British Army band happened to be playing as Cornwallis formally surrendered to Washington in 1781 is in fact called “The Word Turned Upside Down.”
    You could really, really, seal this budding “friendship,” you know, by voting Republican sometime soon. November, say….

  20. Others have said this more eloquently I’m sure, but one measure of a civilized society is reflected in how they treat the most defenseless and vulnerable among them, humans and animals alike.

  22. monongahela:
    I believe that while certainly a creep, this guy used correct grammar (so he’s certainly not a regular poster here…)
    He said: “… my wife and I don’t want this dog no more.”
    The problem is not with “my wife and I,” I believe the issue is with “NO more.” (Someone else can deal with that.)
    An easy way to figure this out is to get rid of the other person, so here would: “I don’t want this dog…” be correct? Yes.
    But “Me don’t want this dog…” would not.
    Try this one: “They gave this gift to my wife and I.” (Wrong. Because you would not say, “They gave this gift to I.” You would say, “They gave this gift to me.”)
    It seems though that folks loath saying ME. So they use I or myself (ugh!) when sometime little old me is just fine….
    Forgive me, but I love this mistake because as Patricia T. O’Conner says it is the “single most common mistake in American English.”

  23. Pork Roll – it was Ghandi.
    “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”

  24. Prof, your great tactical mistake above had nothing to do with grammar. But, rather, is evinced in the lack of necessity for your post in the first place.

  25. Ah, Cathar… as much as I want to demonstrate my love, I just can’t vote for 100 years in Iraq. But here: have a Tic Tac.
    Prof: you were so eager to lecture and blather on about grammar that you missed the fact monongahela was making a joke. Jeez, I’m a singer–and even *I* do not love the sound of my own voice as much as you do.

  27. i’d rather have an abjuration of the sort of candidate who says who cannot “deny” Reverend Jeremiah Wright than a TicTac (and also of the one who cannot “deny” her serially adulterous swine of a spouse), Kate. I’d much prefer that.

  28. Didn’t Obama formally deny Rev Wright just today? (Thanks for the new vocab word, incidentally. I love new words.)
    Can’t say anything about Hillary; given the choices, the candidate I support is Obama.
    I can’t and won’t support a candidate who says he “will always hate the gooks” or that he wants 100 years in Iraq. Or any of the other similarly insane statements he’s made. I can’t wait for the general campaign to begin so that some of this will start to come to light.
    Still, the Tic Tac is yours whenever you want it. It’s orange.
    And I still hope they catch the guy who hurt and abandoned the dog. My dogs would like to take a couple of chunks out of his ankles in retribution.

  29. Perhaps, had they imprisoned you, tortured you or even shot at you, Kate, you might at least retain a certain reluctance to embrace “the gooks.” Or the “slopes,” “dinks,” etc….. Why, perhaps, had you lost loved ones on 9/11, you might not even always thrill to the five daily calls to prayer as dictated by the Koran.
    At my college, they used to have daily (sometimes twice daily!) “peace rallies” at a sundial on campus. But as I learned within 3 days in Nam, the enemy (and they were that back then) cared not a whit how many of these rallies I’d attended myself as a student. Instead, they stubbornly persisted in trying to mill me.
    So no, Kate, I don’t think you have as much wriggle room as you tried bestowing upon yourself, even as I think Senator McCain does. But then, you apparently support a candidate who claims he has “street cred.” Which I can only assume he picked up at a madrassa and the Catholic school (where, as it turns out, his religion was listed as “Muslim”) in Indonesia, and at the pricey indeed and exclusive prep school he attended in Hawaii. These are all, natch, as opposed to the urban district he later represented as a state senator in Il.

  31. Cathar, I have the utmost sympathy and empathy for what Sen McCain endured in Vietnam, and the utmost appreciation for those who fight or have fought to defend this country, including you.
    I can only imagine the continued suffering of a man who experienced what he did at the hands of his torturers.
    However, I do NOT feel that it can be considered acceptable to elect a man to the highest office in the country who believes it is acceptable to make racist slurs–slurs that apply not only to his captors, but to a significant proportion of our population.
    Senator McCain is well entitled to his feelings, his hatred, and the myriad personal issues he must experience having been imprisoned and tortured. However, I do not want someone filled with that hatred leading this country. I wish the man peace and love, but I cannot support his candidacy for president.

  32. You know, I posted the same Ghandi quote a few months ago – within the context of an animal abuse story – and a bunch of people went completely ‘apeshit’ over it.
    It’s good to see that it has been received with a little less furor this time around.

  33. MB, what did people object to about that Gandhi quote on the other thread?
    That seems so strange to me; I can’t imagine what could be considered offensive about it.

  34. Senator Mc Cain made that remark- and apologized for it over eight years ago.
    Don’t forget, the senator took a lot of heat for his support of normalizing relations with Vietnam.

  35. It WOULD be nice to have a Commander in Chief who actually saw some action. And I don’t mean in the Oval Office.
    But seriously, as its stands today, it looks like I’ll be writing in a name. Unless something dramatic happens between now and November.

  36. I would like to submit my dog, Tallulah, for the November slate. She is a mutt, a shameless attention mooch, and she thinks that there’s no problem that cannot be solved by a good hot dog.
    She’s also not afraid to roll in something rancid/dead, as evidenced by her aroma that necessitated an impromptu bath this evening.
    Oh, and she’s a Liberterrierian.

  37. She’s also not afraid to roll in something rancid/dead, as evidenced by her aroma that necessitated an impromptu bath this evening.
    Then she should fit right in with all the other professional politicians! 🙂 I’m in–Tallulah for prez!

  39. Martta, I’m there with you. I’m a democrat, and I don’t much like any of the candidates.
    I’m game for writing in Tallulah. Or maybe I’ll vote for Kucinich for a laugh, he always seems to hang around on the ballot. Sigh.

  40. I’m in Dallas right now and keeping my mouth shut. The Prez was on every channel today. For a minute I thought we had another terrorist attack but it was only the House of Inactivity he was yakking about!….PAZ in DFW.

  41. Prof, I think that when monongahela said it should be “My wife and ME”, he or she was simply agog at the possibility that the perp might have actually used “My wife and I” and thought it sounded much more likely that the creep had said “My wife an’ me don’t want this dog no mo'”.
    I read Mr. or Ms. Monongahela’s comment as probably wondering aloud if the witness didn’t edit the suspect’s statement somewhat for grammar.

  43. “MB, what did people object to about that Gandhi quote on the other thread?”
    Kate,
    Two or three posters were denigrating the quote, simply because they felt that judging a nation’s civility based on how it treated it’s animals was ‘dumb-ass’. A couple of the posters went on to refute the quote based on India’s treatment of bovines and the health hazard posed by wandering cows.
    I was appalled by the insensitivity and declined any further comment until yesterday.

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