how long is this fucking article
In a statement to the Guardian, Roberts denied ever killing a dog with a shovel. He did not answer questions about why several people say he told them that he had.
News of Roberts’s alleged comments to colleagues comes as Trump, the Republican nominee for president, and his running mate, JD Vance, have engaged in a racist and false propaganda campaign to demonize Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, by claiming that they have been killing and eating people’s pets. The xenophobic claims, which are probably meant to strengthen support among white, racist and anti-immigrant voters, have incited multiple bomb threats that have disrupted the Springfield community.
Marsha Weisiger, a colleague of Roberts at the time who is now an environmental history professor at the University of Oregon, recalled being invited to dinner at Roberts’s home with her husband, and Roberts telling both of them the story about how he had hit a neighbor’s pit bull with a shovel and killed it.
To make matters worse, she recalled Roberts saying that the neighbor in question also had puppies and that he had considered killing them, too. Weisiger’s husband, who asked not to be named, recalled Roberts saying he had complained about the dog to the police, who were not responsive, and that the dog sometimes got into his yard.
Daniel Aran, who has been released from prison and is now the owner of a small construction company, spoke to the Guardian from the front yard of the small stone house. Aran is lean and muscular, with a chiseled face and hardened stare.
It was a fucking pit bull who sometimes got into their yard and the police were not responsive.
I have small kids, a fat pig and a tiny wife. Yeah, I’d shotgun that motherfucker stone dead. Y’all acting like he beat Lassie.
That’s when you call a shelter or something. Unless the dog was visibly aggressive right off the bat, resorting to beating it to death with a shovel seems a bit extreme as a course of action.
You think a shelter is going to take a mad dog when the police refuse to intervene?! Shelters are automatic, “kill all pits” crematoriums. Man the fuck up and handle it yourself if the authorities refuse.
Had to shoot a wild pig tearing up my yard and terrorizing my pet pig. Called the Humane Society, local pig shelter, cops (twice), animal control (twice), “We don’t handle feral pigs.” Cops: “It’s up to the home owner to handle the situation as he sees fit.” Fuck me. Had to shotgun and bury her and I fucking hated doing so. Still tears me up at times. What else was I to do?
LOL, libs can be Karens all day. “Gosh! Call the authorities! I pay my taxes so someone else will handle the ugly parts of life!” Well Karen, sometimes you have to grow a pair and deal with life and death. And most often, it sucks doing so.
Look at the big, brave man over here who killed an animal with a shotgun. So hard and difficult, I bet you could kill a grizzly bear with one arm and save the whole village if needed.
And for the record, I come from a family of farmers. My grandparents lived in bumfuck nowhere in the mountains of Appalachia, their house didn’t even have indoor plumbing until the mid-90s. I’ve gone hunting, I’m not a sheltered urbanite who thinks the police will magically solve everything. What I essentially said was, only a fucking sociopath humblebrags about slaughtering a dog that with a shovel because it entered his yard and the cops wouldn’t come deal with it. A shovel isn’t exactly a clean, quick death. Was the dog aggressive? Did it show any signs of aggression? Or could he have easily lured it away or into an enclosure until a shelter could take it (and yes, euthanasia is a far better death than having you head bashed in with a fucking shovel).
Seems like a pretty bad plan. I dont trust any of my neighbors to use firearms safely. Every time they miss, and they absolutely will miss, that bullet is going someplace. Bullets dont just miss and then disappear from the universe like on tv shows, and anyone who thinks like they do is an idiot.
Regardless, the article is extremely long and onion-y, and I wouldn’t brag about it at a dinner party.
We don’t know the circumstances as to how it came up. I don’t brag about killing a wild pig in my front yard, I hated it, but I can see such a thing coming up in conversation.
“Nah. I hate the guy so he must have been bragging. Probably brought it apropos of nothing. ‘So anyway, want to hear how I killed the neighbor’s dog with a shovel?’”
Hmm, you do have a point.