Brookfield police on July 30 charged both parties involved in the shooting of a dog and the mauling of a duck.
Police said they were called July 28 to 869 Bedford Road with a report of dogs attacking livestock. Daniel Hartzell, 30, of that address, told police that he had fired a 9 mm handgun at least 10 times at two large, white dogs near a large ditch that goes under Bedford, police said.
Hartzell also showed police a dead duck that had been attacked by the dogs, police said.
Susan I. Simion, 7250 Stewart Sharon Road, reported to police that her dogs were missing and running at large, and that she believed the ones that were shot at were hers’ and had been injured. She later posted on Facebook that one of the dogs, named Zeus and which she described as “a gentle giant,” had been killed. The other dog was unharmed.
Hartzell has been charged with discharging firearms on or near prohibited premises. Simion has been charged with two counts of failing to confine dogs. Both face arraignments Aug. 11 in Trumbull County Eastern District Court.
Police said each defendant will be asked to pay for the other’s loss, and that the charges were filed after reviewing the case with a Trumbull County prosecutor.
“Not exactly what I wanted, but he is being charged with something,” Simion said in a Facebook post that went up at about 1 p.m. July 30. She said that “getting animal justice is almost impossible to come by in this area.”
Simion has started a crowdfunding campaign to pay for legal action.
