Over the summer, several witnesses around Minneapolis recorded a man openly beating his dog while talking walks around the Uptown neighborhood and reported it to police and animal control.
Those recordings and a microchip in the dog ultimately led to a positive identification of the dog’s owner.
On Tuesday, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charged Stephon Mosley Thompson, 32, with two misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals after one of his dogs was found abandoned by the Minneapolis Police Department and turned over to Minneapolis Animal Care and Control.
Thompson, of Brooklyn Park, faces a maximum of 90 days in jail or $1,000 in fines on both counts.
According to the charges:
Several calls were made to Minneapolis Animal Care and Control on Aug. 6 after witnesses saw a man beating one of his dogs while on a walk with two dogs in Minneapolis. Witnesses had taken videos and photographs of the man hitting the dog, which was later identified as Subliminal, a 2-year-old Siberian husky mix.
The dog couldn’t put weight on its back right leg and the videos showed the man hitting the dog in the face with an open hand.
Two months later, Minneapolis police officers dropped the dog off as a stray at animal control. Using a microchip that was implanted in the dog, Thompson was identified as the owner.
