Over the past three weeks, the reports have come in quick succession: A pit bull stabbed in Fairfax. A chihuahua set on fire in Prince George’s County. Horse slashings at an idyllic farm in Herndon.
The D.C. region has seen a number of high-profile animal cruelty cases recently, and although experts say it’s difficult to track and catalog such incients, they tend to increase in the summer months.
“These cases tend to go in waves in a sense, where we’ll get a bunch [at the same time],” said Adam Parascandola, the director of animal cruelty investigations at the U.S. Humane Society. “It’s hard to know exactly what the circumstances are, but during the summer, we tend to see an increase in these types of cruelty cases. There’s more people around and outside and getting into trouble,”
| A history of violence |
| April-May 2012: A series of animal slashings occurs at Frying Pan Farm in Herndon. |
| June 20: A chihuahua is set on fire in Prince George’s County. |
| June 23: A 17-year-old boy is arrested in connection with the Frying Pan animal slashings. |
| June 29: A pit bull is stabbed in Fairfax County but survives and is taken to a shelter. In Washington, a 6-month-old puppy named King Tut is killed when someone drops a 100-lb block of concrete onto its head while the dog is sleeping. |
| July 7: Lucinda, a horse at Frying Pan Farm Park, is slashed again. The 17-year-old boy arrested in the earlier slashings was in custody at the time, police say. |
| July 11: Sean Delontay Branch is arrested and charged with King Tut’s killing. |
The spate of animal cruelty cases in the Washington area began on June 20, when Prince George’s County police officers responded to a report of an animal on fire on Fort Washington’s Proxmire Drive. When they arrived on the scene, the dog — an “older male chihuahua,” police said — was already dead. Nine days later, Fairfax County police responded to a report of a 15-month old pit bull who had been stabbed in the neck. On the same day in Washington, police say, a man dropped a 100-pound block of concrete on the head of a 6-month-old puppy named King Tut.
The Humane Society’s Washington branch employs four humane law enforcement officers to monitor the entire city, and officers say they rely mostly on locals to report animal cruelty offenses.
“Everyone’s going to need to give us a call when they see something might be off. There’s only four officers and we have a lot of ground to cover,” said Michael Triebwasser, a humane law enforcement officer at the Washington branch.
Law enforcement officials have had some success in investigating animal cruelty cases in the region. Sean Deltonay Branch, who police say was responsible for King Tut’s death, was arrested Wednesday, and Fairfax County police in June took a 17-year-old boy into custody in connection with series of animal slashings — three horses, two goats, a calf and a chicken — at Frying Pan Park in Herndon in April and May.
Last week, however, a horse named Lucinda — who was hurt in the original attack — was stabbed again. At Frying Pan Park on Friday afternoon, Davorka Suvak, who runs a horse therapy program with Lucinda and other horses, said it’s hard to grasp why anyone would attack an animal; and experts say those who commit acts of animal cruelty have a higher risk of committing violent crimes against humans.
“It’s not easy to work back from the offense to the kind of person who committed it,” said Richard Oretga, the chief of policy and clinical affairs for the Maryland Mental Hygiene Administration’s office of forensic services. “But adults doing terrible things to animals who aren’t pets — this is a person with big problems.”
On Friday, Suvak said she’d been shaken by the attacks but trusted that police would track down the second slasher.
“This will not slow us down. It’s a bad experience, but that’s life,” she said while three horses, some with visible scars, ambled around a nearby paddock. “To the people who did this — instead of visiting our field with machetes at night, prove your manhood and volunteer with us.”
