A killing in Lincoln

The news teems with negativity nowadays from the economy to crime, weaponizing our political system and the ongoing dangerous border invasion. But a horror story as told by our reporter Tom Sissom out of the community of Lincoln several days ago takes my darkest bluest ribbon.

First, imagine how difficult life would be for a 16-year-old blind Pomeranian. Now imagine yourself as that helpless dog standing not a foot tall, suddenly being beaten with a metal object (later described as a machete) as your attacker shouted at you before snatching all 8 or so pounds of you up and carrying you inside her house.

Now imagine the man who lived in that house came back outside with you in his grasp, tossed you into a trash can, and began to stab you with a pitchfork as you screamed in pain before pulling you out and stuffing you into a 5-gallon bucket with an airtight lid. Then he carries you back inside.

At this point you probably should be dead. Yet you’re hanging on while gasping for each breath inside the container. A veterinarian would later find you suffering from several terrible injuries including a fractured skull, ribs, and front leg, and a laceration to the bone on one leg.

At your advanced age and being blind, you have no concept of what you’d done to deserve such incredible suffering at the hands of supposedly higher-functioning human beings.

Sissom’s story said that Washington County sheriff’s deputies were summoned to Tara Road in Lincoln on a call of a disturbance in progress and learned that the owner saw her dog snatched by her female neighbor, Alane Maltese, and taken into the home. Another neighbor told deputies that he witnessed the husband of the female neighbor take the dog back outside, stuff it in a black trash can, stab it with a pitchfork, and then stuff it in a white bucket.

Robert Maltese told deputies the dog wasn’t in his house and refused to let them search for the dog, so they obtained a search warrant and discovered the bucket containing the dog beneath a cabinet, according to the story. The dog was taken to the vet and euthanized due to the severity of its injuries.

Subsequently, Robert, 54, was arrested on charges of aggravated animal cruelty, tampering with physical evidence, hindering apprehension or prosecution and theft of property. Alane, 60, was arrested on charges of aggravated animal cruelty, terroristic threatening and theft of property.

They were released from the Washington County Detention Center after each posted a $5,000 bond.

Of course, since this nation proudly proclaim ourselves to be sticklers for justice under rule of law, I’ll wait to the couple’s trial where their guilt or innocence will be determined. If found innocent, I’ll be sure to let all you dog lovers know.

GENDER-NEUTRAL

Joe Biden’s spectacularly accomplished Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently instructed his State Department employees to avoid using “problematic” terms this administration feels are potentially hurtful such as “mother/father” and “manpower.”

We should be thankful for this Harvard/Columbia-educated bureaucrat obviously teeming with insight and empathy to finally put an end to such language among his apparently “unwoke” employees.

I know how close to tears I’ve been over the years whenever hearing shocking terms like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, or any inappropriate reference to my mother and father and any employment news using “manpower.” Heavens to Betsy! I recall almost passing out when some wag offended me to high heaven with a manpower reference during his career search.

Blinken, the unelected official and lawyer most responsible for negotiating our critical foreign affairs, reportedly instructed all State Department employees, in a note obtained by the National Review titled “Modeling DEIA: Gender Identity Best Practices.” to use “gender-neutral language whenever possible” to “show respect and avoid misunderstandings.”

Blinken also suggested employees identify their preferred pronouns in emails and when introducing themselves in meetings, according to the National Review.

Quite frankly I don’t know how our faltering constitutional republic has survived more than two centuries while using words like mother and father that today suddenly supposedly offend a microscopic minority among us (although everyone needed both genders to even be here to be offended, right?)

Blinken and boss Joe Biden must believe we would become a nation of higher angels by referring to our mother as “the soft-spoken, smoothskinned person generally with longer hair and a softer voice who carried, birthed and breast-fed me” and father as “the usually larger person with shorter head hair, a deeper voice and whiskers who contributed sperm as his part of making me within the other person’s person’s womb.”

Everyone else appreciating this administration’s “woke” push so far? Feeling more advanced and enlightened as a civilization? If so, be sure to let them know just how much you appreciate their dictates and attitudes come November.

PIT CRUSHED FACE

I just read that a 2-year-old girl from Fort Worth suffered massive trauma after she was attacked by a pit bull in November. Family members told reporters from WFAATV the pit bull “crushed her facial bones” and “all the tissue under the skin was completely detached from the skull.”

Little McKenna Martin had been placed on a temporary home safety plan by Child Protective Services before the attack. Her parents volunteered to place their daughter in the care of family friends after a drug-addiction relapse. CPS, however, placed McKenna with a relative, the parents said.

While at the temporary home, the family’s pit bull lunged at the toddler from across the room and attacked her. First responders transported McKenna to a nearby hospital in Fort Worth, where she underwent multiple surgeries following the savage mauling that left her face torn apart.

Contrast that with an email received the other day that told of a woman with a similarly small child who was enamored with her new friendly pit bull that seemed to just love her toddler daughter. To that I can only say best of luck and prayers. I’d have chosen a loving, gentle and cuddly golden retriever puppy.

Meanwhile I’m learning about the significant number of human deaths by larger dogs that local news media, for whatever reason, decided not to cover. I consider the failure the sign either of beyond poor local reporting or a news operation where employees own potentially violent dogs such as pit bulls and their mixes and don’t want to paint them in the bad light their breed has earned in the statistics.

Dogsbite.org reported that in January 2022 in Gulf Breeze, Fla., a mother arose from her bed where she had been with Charlotte, her 3-month-old baby, and went into the nearby bathroom. In about a minute, she heard an odd noise coming from the bedroom and stepped back in to investigate. To her horror she saw her daughter’s head in the mouth of their “pet” French Mastiff mix.

She swatted at the dog, making it drop Charlotte. She called 911, and EMTs and deputies soon arrived. She was rushed to the hospital but it was too late to save Charlotte, even though her mother had gotten to her so quickly.

Local media remained silent. Ronald Adams, 79, was killed by his newly adopted pit bulls in Lake Placid, Fla., in September 2022. Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to his home to conduct a welfare check and found Adams dead on the dining room floor. “The decedent’s right arm had its flesh removed to the bone from the shoulder to the hand,” an officer’s report states.

Two pit bull mixes were inside the home, one reportedly covered “from the face towards [its] tail with blood.” Both dogs had recently been adopted from the county’s Humane Society where Adams had volunteered but had had to stop due to health issues, stated the report.

Adams died of “multiple lacerations and puncture wounds to upper limbs with loss of soft tissue and muscle due to being attacked by canine(s).” Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease was listed as a contributing factor, and the manner of death was deemed an accident.

Yet again, there were no local media reports on this man’s killing.

“Since 2011, we have obtained verification for 26 non-media-reported dog bite fatalities,” Dogsbite. org reported. “Fifty-four percent of these deaths occurred after onset of the pandemic in 2020 when media reports and police press releases of fatal dog attacks declined, but the attacks escalated.

“Even [the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] issued a report last fall showing the increasing number of people killed by dogs. Of the 26 verified cases without media reports, 77 percent involved a family dog killing a household member, and 73 percent involved one or more pit bulls.”

Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.