DeLAND, Fla. – DeLand police last week arrested a man accused of animal cruelty after officers found a sickly dog that “ultimately had to be euthanized due to its condition,” the agency said on social media.
Marco Johnson, 35, faces a charge of animal cruelty and was being held on a $5,000 bond at the time of this report.
Johnson was arrested the evening of July 25 after the DeLand Police Department responded to a home in the 500 block of Beresford Avenue, locating a female pitbull/bulldog mix named “Baby Girl” on the home’s porch, according to an arrest affidavit.
Police were called to the home by Johnson’s ex-girlfriend, who he had asked to check on the dog and arrived to find Baby Girl covered in blood and fleas, the affidavit states. According to the police department, the dog was “extremely malnourished and unable to move or bark and appeared to have shallow breaths,” with officers noting the dog looked lifeless, occasionally twitched and could barely open her eyes.
Johnson allegedly refused to get any kind of help for the dog, telling police, “I don’t want her to go to the hospital,” according to the affidavit. Johnson went on to say that if the dog was dying, then it would die at his side, the affidavit states.
Johnson was arrested while Baby Girl was seized by police and taken to an emergency vet where a professional opinion was reached that she should be put down due, in part, to potentially untreatable flea anemia, according to the affidavit.
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