Bestiality crimes being targeted by new state laws
As Salvador COLUMBUS — Rendon was being arraigned last year on charges he had engaged for years in sexual intercourse with dogs, animal-rights activists descended on Warren, Ohio, to make their case: The state needed an anti-bestiality law.
The group had endured years of chiding: giggles about farm animals, “Deliverance” jokes, barks during a legislative hearing, questions of, “If the animal’s not injured, what’s the harm?”
But the Warren case was changing things.
Rendon was accused of having intercourse with two dogs — a male and a female boxer that belonged to his daughter — at least 10 times over a six-year period. Police told a local television station they’d “never seen a case like this one.” The judge called Rendon’s actions “despicable and highly disturbing.”
But, in a state where bestiality wasn’t a crime, authorities were limited to charging Rendon with animal cruelty, a misdemeanor, and only after proving he had caused physical harm to an animal. Rendon spent 30 days in jail and remains on five years’ probation.
The case prompted Warren to pass Ohio’s first local bestiality ban, with tougher penalties and no requirement to prove physical harm, allowing investigators to rely on witness testimony and forensic evidence. It also helped pass a statewide anti-bestiality law effective this month.
Eight states — Hawaii, Kentucky, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming — and the District of Columbia still lack anti-bestiality laws. Some states inadvertently lifted earlier prohibitions on human-animal sex when they were updating their laws to remove sodomy as a crime.
The Humane Society of the United States led the lobbying effort to outlaw bestiality, but a much larger coalition, including domestic violence shelters, conservative Christians, law enforcers and psychologists, got behind the law this time.
“We were able to explain that this is not just an animal issue,” said Corey Roscoe, the society’s Ohio state director. “This did have ramifications for human violence. Sexually deviant acts are a red flag to other acts of sexual violence.”
Since 2005, arrests for animal sex abuse and exploitation in the U.S. have risen dramatically. The number of arrests in 2014 was more than double the total number of arrests in the 30 years between 1970 and 2000.
Jenny Edwards, a criminologist in Washington who studies the issue, said the rise has been driven by the internet.
Online forums that exist behind powerful firewalls allow like-minded people to communicate and share animals for breeding and sexual experiences.
“It’s been great for deviants,” Edwards said.
A decade of research by Edwards also shows links between those who abuse animals and those who abuse other vulnerable groups, including children, women and other family members.
Animals involved are mostly horses, large dogs and sometimes deer. Roscoe said large animals are targeted in part because physical harm is more difficult to prove if perpetrators are caught. Psychologists have testified animals suffer psychological effects, including depression, anxiety and aggression.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation singled out animal cruelty offenses in its national crime statistics for the first time last year, in an effort to begin to definitively quantify the problem.
Edwards said such crimes are difficult to track, because the animals involved are often shuffled off to shelters without being tested for abuse, because police departments are focused on human crimes, and because veterinarians often don’t know what to look for. She advises using human rape kits.
Stigma remains an obstacle.
Though she supported the vote, Warren City Council member Helen Rucker, a Democrat, raised concern that passing the state’s first law would suggest the city had a widespread problem. Until the latest bill, championed by a pair of Republican state senators, Ohio legislators hesitated to put their names on proposed bestiality bills, seeing the issue as a punch line advanced by some overly zealous animal lovers.
When Edwards called a North Carolina police department to report a bestiality case she’d uncovered, a detective put her on speaker phone so he and his colleagues could laugh.
“That’s a lot of what my work is focused on, trying to remove that idea,” she said. “It’s not a joke. It’s far more common than people realize it is, and far more sinister than people realize it is.”
A Clark County fire chief who deployed to Afghanistan as a civilian for more than a year was recently recognized at the Ohio Statehouse for his service.
Bethel Twp. Fire Chief Jacob King returned from overseas in February. He’s also the fire chief at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and through his job there, he had the opportunity to deploy to Afghanistan.
“It was a great opportunity for me to help citizens in another country and support the United States Department of Defense,” King said.
While in Afghanistan, King said he was in charge of U.S. and NATO fire protection forces throughout the country. He made sure bases were prepared to fight fires.
“Making sure they had the correct equipment, to have enough water to put out an aircraft and respond to any bases in Afghanistan,” he said.
Fighting fires in Afghanistan is much different than at home, he said.
“It’s not like the United States where you can pretty much go to any town ... and call for a fire department,” he said. “There is no system like that. So when our bases are out there, they stand alone. So they have to be able to support and sustain themselves.”
He also worked with the Afghanistan Ministry of Defense and Interior, he said, as a fire and disaster response adviser.
“We try to develop key programs for them to take care of their own people,” King said.
King was recognized last week on the floor of the Statehouse by state Rep. Kyle Koehler, R-Springfield. King received the Joint Civilian Service Commendation Medal for his service.
King oversaw, “the training of over 600 firefighters and the health and safety of over 20,000 U.S. personnel,” Koehler said in a statement.
“He has sacrificed time for the things he loves to serve the country he loves,” Koehler said on the floor.
Serving in Afghanistan was a rewarding experience, King said, that taught him lessons he’ll take back to his job on base and in Bethel Twp.
“It’s nice to come back and say, ‘OK, I know why you do what you do and I see why you actually make an impact,’” he said.
And he has a new appreciation for the work done at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base since he’s returned home.
“I really saw the cradle to grave programs here at Wright-Patterson Air Force base in action in a war-torn country,” he said. “They were the key backbone to making those operations work.”
He couldn’t have served without the support of his wife and six children, he said.
“It makes me grateful to know that I’m an American,” he said. “That’s for sure.