TULSA -- A Tulsa couple says a city worker killed their dog right in front of them.
Julie Bailey was on her front porch about to take her two dogs on a walk Friday afternoon when a city worker came to check the water meter.
Bailey said, “They were still on the leash. The leash was going down the yard. I immediately got up to chase after the leashes so I could step on them, but they were faster than I was.”
The dogs ran up to the city worker and that’s when bailey says he struck her 5-pound dog “Thumper” with a metal rod.
She recalled, “I could see Thumper right down by the manhole cover. Thumper was down, and the man picked it up and went like that and like that on top of Thumper twice after Thumper was not moving.”
But the worker said to call his supervisor and left. Bailey was left holding her lifeless dog who was seizing and bleeding.
The vet said the damage to Thumper’s skull was beyond repair, and Bailey and her husband Scott lost their 6-year-old baby.
Bailey’s husband, Scott Guy said through tears, “Thumper would jump up in my lap and watch ball games with me. He would always jump up on me when I’d come in the door.”
The city worker involved in the incident was dismissed from his duties with the City of Tulsa, and police have launched an investigation.
Jean Letcher, with Tulsa Animal Welfare Shelter explained, “We are not determining whether someone is guilty; we are putting together the best information in the case we can to present to the da.”
If the city worker is found guilty of animal abuse, a felony, he faces up to five years in prison.
However, no matter how the investigation ends, Bailey says she will never unsee what was done to her dog.
She said, “I haven’t come out of my front door. My bedroom window looks over the spot where Thumper was basically murdered, and I can’t look over there.”
The couple’s only hope now is that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.
Guy said, “No creature on the face of the earth should have to go through what he went through, and my wife shouldn’t have had to see something like that.”
Since the incident, the family has received an outpouring of support, even from the mayor of Tulsa, who sent his condolences to the family.
The mayor also says water meter readers are required to attend trainings in dog awareness, which includes the use of mace.
The investigation is ongoing.
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