Tougher animal-cruelty laws, penalties urged

For weeks, she could hear the bloodcurdling screams echoing through her Tempe apartment complex.

Heather Frazer desperately tried to find the source of the cries because she knew an animal was in trouble. After several attempts, she found the right apartment and peered through a gap in the blinds.

“That was when I saw like a little ball of orange fur on the ground,” Frazer said, beginning to choke back tears. “It was the worst scream that I’ve ever heard in my life.”

She said she caught a glimpse of a man beating the puppy with a metal rod — over and over again, she said.

Frazer called Tempe police, who entered and found a tiny golden retriever with multiple skull and cheek-bone fractures, swelling in both eyes, mul-

tiple cuts on his front shoulder and on top of his head, and a broken canine tooth.

Police also found two cats in the apartment that appeared to be beaten. One cat’s eye was detached from its socket, according to media reports at the time.

Shundong Hu, the man Frazer said she saw in the apartment, was indicted on charges of cruel mistreatment of an animal, a Class 6 felony, and two misdemeanors for failing to provide medical treatment to an animal and disorderly conduct.

Hu, who pleaded not guilty, is scheduled to stand trial in April.

If he’s convicted, the felony charge could be changed to a misdemeanor by the court and carry a much lighter punishment, due to Arizona’s existing animal-cruelty laws.

The potential penalty would be greater for killing a lamb or a cow without the owner’s permission.

Animal advocates, including the Arizona Humane Society and Frazer, said that difference is why Arizona lawmakers need to close what they call the state’s “animal-abuse loophole.”

They are asking the Legislature to pass Senate Bill 1295, which would toughen the penalty in severe cases of animal cruelty by making it a Class 5 felony, the same penalty as killing livestock illegally.

The court cannot change a Class 5 felony to a misdemeanor and a conviction would carry a presumptive sentence of 11⁄2 years, compared with one year for a Class 6 felony.

Frazer said the violence she witnessed, peering through the blinds that day in January 2017, appeared intentional.

“It does not match the type of crime that I saw,” Frazer said of the current penalty. “He was torturing it weekly, several times a week. He tortured it so many times.”

An attorney identified as Hu’s representative in court filings declined to comment about the case on Thursday.

It appears state lawmakers are taking the issue to heart: On Thursday, a panel in the state Senate voted 6-1 to advance the bill after hearing graphic, emotional testimony from prosecutors and pet owners.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, told the panel about another incidence of cruelty that he said shows the need for tougher penalties in “egregious” cases.

In that case, a Phoenix man was sentenced to 90 days in jail after he pleaded guilty to killing and decapitating a puppy. He left the puppy’s head on the dining-room table for his girlfriend to see because he was angry at her for talking to another man.

“These are the really serious offenders who probably have mental problems, too,” Kavanagh said, stressing that the tougher penalty wouldn’t apply to lower-level cases of neglect.

The bill would apply to cases where a person “intentionally and knowingly” subjects a domestic animal — defined as a mammal kept as a pet — to cruel mistreatment. It also applies to cases where a person kills someone else’s pet without permission.

Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Glendale, cast the lone vote against the bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Quezada said increasing penalties, including up to six months more jail time, won’t deter animal abuse. He said lawmakers should instead look for ways to provide mental-health treatment for offenders.

Several other lawmakers and the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association also raised concerns that the bill could have unintended consequences and lead prosecutors to charge people who kill a dog in self-defense or because it is trying to harm livestock.

Kavanagh assured lawmakers that isn’t the intent and said he would work on an amendment to clarify those exceptions.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, a proponent of the bill, told lawmakers that current law has allowed many abusers — some who have beaten animals to death with hammers and baseball bats or shot horses at pointblank range — to see minimal or no jail time.

The bill now advances to the Senate Rules Committee, for a standard legal review, and then the full Senate for a vote.

While debate over the bill continues, at least one abused animal has found a happy new life.

Frazer adopted Raine, the abused golden retriever, about a month after he was rescued. The Arizona Humane Society, which nursed the puppy back to health, had originally planned to hold a lottery to find an owner for Raine.

But the Humane Society decided Frazer would be the best owner and surprised her with Raine during a press conference about reporting animal cruelty.

More than a year later, Raine is now a healthy, 60-pound retriever.