A Yakima man accused of brutally killing a small dog appeared in court on Friday morning.
Reyes-Serrano is accused of killing the dog at his home on the 700 block on South Fourth Avenue sometime during Independence Day weekend.
A YPD official went to the house on July 5 and found three dogs in good health, and Reyes-Serrano denied that a dog was hanging from the fence, court documents say.
As the officer was leaving, another man came up to him and showed him a picture of a small black dog with its paws tied up in Reyes-Serrano’s driveway, the documents say. The man told the officer that the dog he saw on July 4th may have been dead, court records say.
Reyes Serrano told the man the dog was a stray that came into his garden, the officer noted in his report.
Yakima’s animal welfare officer was investigating, and Reyes-Serrano told the animal welfare officer that he killed the small dog because court records said he was seriously injured by his dogs.
Reyes-Serrano turned over the dog’s remains that he had in a crawl space under his house, court records say. The animal control officer and two vets said the dog’s injuries were incompatible with a canine attack.
Reyes-Serrano is currently out of custody on trial, but Judge Richard Bartheld, who described the allegations as “hideous”, ordered him to turn his dogs over to either the Yakima Humane Society or a private kennel and avoid contact with domesticated others Animals.
