A pit bull was killed after being forced to fight another dog. His owner will now spend 10 years in

[douglas9]

Les Meyers’s dog won the fight, but victory was not enough to save him.

After the win, Meyers unleashed the unnamed pit bull one last time for a “courtesy scratch,” a dogfighting ritual in which the victor attacks a vanquished opponent — or its corpse — to show its “gameness.” The display, in illegal dogfighting circles, brings prestige to a handler.

Injured and exhausted, Meyers’s dog refused to attack One-Eyed Willie, the pit bull he had just defeated in a gruesome 45-minute brawl.

Enraged, Meyers used a belt to hang his dog from a tree branch, choking him to death.

On Friday, Meyers was sentenced to 10 years and three months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the Animal Welfare Act and illegally possessing a handgun as a felon. He was among the last of 12 defendants to be sentenced in a 2017 Georgia dogfighting case.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/09/29/georgia-dog-fighting/

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Twisted broken damaged people do twisted broken things. Still responsible for it, though. . . . nt

[Arkansas Granny]

2. I have to wonder how people who are so cruel to animals treat children

or others who are seen as weak or helpless. We've learned that serial killers often start with animals. Do serial abusers do the same?

[Rorey]

3. Ten years isn't nearly enough

There is no use for scum like this. He should rot.

[lapfog_1]

4. Why was this person not in prison already?

In September 2018, more than a year after breaking up the dogfight in Sumter County, authorities raided a property in southwest Georgia where prosecutors alleged Meyers was keeping 27 pit bulls for his “animal fighting venture.”

Meyers has a history of dogfighting. In 2011, he was convicted of 33 counts of animal cruelty in Leon County, Fla., federal prosecutors wrote in court documents. In that case, officers found 13 pit bulls crated inside a residence he used to run a previous operation. The dogs had no access to food, and some of the crates were splattered with blood.

Outside, authorities found another 13 dogs chained up, including two that were dead, court documents said. A veterinarian determined both had died of sepsis from untreated injuries. Some of the survivors struggled to stand, and other dogs were found to be “severely emaciated.”

[SharonClark]

5. Because animal cruelty laws are too weak.

In puppy mill states, it's often hard to enact strong animal cruelty laws due to lobbying by the livestock industry.
I don't know what the problem is with banning dog fighting and enforcing those laws.

[Duppers]

6. Truly!

I cannot post what I'd like to see done to this horrible human.

😭 for the dogs.