(Marion, AR) A Crittenden County Sheriff’s deputy is going to be getting animal cruelty training in the hope it will help prosecute more cases.
For animal rescue workers, it really can be the stuff of nightmares.
“It’s something you might dream about and wake up in the middle of the night,” said Rusty Coleman.
Rusty Coleman was there when more than thirty starving and neglected animals were taken out of this home in Proctor, Arkansas in 2011.
Nine of them were already dead.
“The stench from the house was unbearable,” said Coleman.
It’s something the director of the Marion Animal Shelter won’t forget anytime soon. Some of those animals stayed in his care.
That’s because Crittenden County doesn’t have its own shelter for animals found outside city limits.
It also doesn’t have a sheriff’s deputy trained to spot animal cruelty cases.
That’s about to change, “I think it will be great for the county and the citizens of the county.”
The Crittenden County sheriff’s Department is sending one of its deputies to Shreveport, Louisiana to get training in how to spot and prosecute animal cruelty cases.
It’s a course Coleman has taken to be animal control officer.
He says the deputy will know what to look out for in cruelty cases and how to present them in court.
The deputy will also be able to help him as well because while Crittenden County continues to work on getting its own shelter, Marion and West Memphis will continue to treat and care for wounded animals before a cruelty case goes to court, “Each case will bring back different memories.”
He says each case is difficult to forget.
The Crittenden County Sheriff’s Department says it wants this to a be a top-notch investigator so once the deputy finishes this course in February he will get further training later on in the year.