The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Witnesses say man kicked 2 dogs in head
Police looking for suspect in Midtown pet attacks.
Atlanta police are looking for a man who witnesses say kicked two dogs in Midtown last week.
Sara Fernaldo told police she was taking trash to a bin at the corner of Peachtree and 11th streets on May 24 when a man she described as about 6 feet tall and 250 pounds walked over and kicked her 20-pound dog in the head.
“My dog yelped,” Fernaldo told police in the report.
Immediately afterward, the man with “closely cropped hair” continued through the intersection as she called out, “That was so awful.”
The man turned his head slightly and gestured with his arms out and palms up as if to shrug off the incident, Fernaldo said.
A few hours later, about 11 a.m., Dakota Lane called 911 and reported a similar incident.
Lane, who owns five dogs, said he was shocked and appalled when he saw a man “kick that dog as hard as he could in the side of the head and the dog fell over and didn’t move.”
That dog, a 12-year-old rat terrier named Rocky, fell unconscious for about five minutes, owner Amber Yandow told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Rocky awoke about the time police arrived, and Yandow filed a report with Atlanta police saying she would press charges.
Yandow said the man turned and said, “What about me?” as he pointed to himself and kept walking away toward Piedmont Park. Another witness took pictures of the man.
A veterinarian told Yandow that Rocky was knocked out “like in a boxing fight,” but he didn’t have any bleeding in his ears or internal damage.
Fortunately, Yandow doesn’t think Rocky knew what hit him.
“It happened so fast,” she said. “I don’t think he knew it was a human that kicked him.”