Admits beating dog with axe handle, police say
By Robert Jordan
Daily Record of Dunn
HARNETT COUNTY – A Dunn man is facing animal cruelty charges after witnesses reported seeing him strike a dog who was found with a broken jaw at his home on Monday.
Antonio Lamont Price, 53, of E. Divine St., reportedly told police to “take the dogs” when officers responded to a call for suspected abuse around 3:34 p.m. Witnesses told Dunn police they saw Price beat the dog with a belt.
Officer Benjamin Green said he made contact with Price who told him one of the dogs tried to bite him. Green asked him if he had struck the dog with a belt.
Price reportedly told Green he used a stick, not a belt, to correct the dog. The “stick” was later identified as an axe handle.
Green said he found a “very hesitant” “brown in color Boxer” who was willing to interact with him in Price’s backyard.
“The dog had its tail between its leg(s) and was rubbing at its face. Lt. (Byron) Tyndall observed a laceration on the animal’s face,” Green noted in his incident report.
Dunn Animal Control Director Courtney Hayter arrived on scene to examine the dog and noted suspected head trauma “based on indicators such as two different sized pupils and swelling of a single eye.”
Hayter reported the dog was also bleeding from its mouth and “pawing at its face.”
Police say Price told Hayter he hit the dog with a “long axe handle.”
“The brown Boxer canine appeared to have a broken jaw,” Green said, in his report. There was also a white dog that appeared to have small bite marks from an altercation between the two animals.
Hayter seized three dogs “due to the abuse and unfit home,” informing Officer Green the animals did not have a proper shelter, food or water.
As Hayter was seizing the dogs, Green said that Price became upset and punched the left rear fender of the animal control vehicle leaving a dent in the quarter panel.
Green arrested Price and placed him in handcuffs. While double locking Price’s handcuffs, Green said Price snatched his arms away from him, catching the officer’s finger in the restraints.
Price is charged with cruelty to animals, resisting a public officer and two counts of injuring personal property. He was booked into the Harnett County Detention Center where he remained Wednesday under a $5,000 secured bond.
The injured dog — a brindle female pit bull — required emergency surgery on Monday night to repair her injured mouth.
Due to the severity of the dog’s injuries from the suspected abuse, the District Attorney’s office has been contacted regarding raising the animal cruelty charge against Price to the felony level.
$5000 bond what a joke.