Vigilante pet owner who rammed dog thief through wall with van gets manslaughter
‘If you try to chase me, I’ll poison you with a dart,’ the dog thief had warned the man after shooting his pet
A man who ran down the thief who killed his dog, slamming the hunter into a brick wall and killing him with his van, has been convicted of manslaughter.
The infamous crime occurred on January 15th in the Jiangsu city of Yangzhou when the 40-year-old dog owner, surnamed Fan, rushed outside after hearing his dog in distress, finding that a man had shot his pet with a poison dart and was now making off with it. When he tried to confront the dog hunter, the man warned him not to try and follow him. “If you dare to chase me, I’ll poison you with a dart,” he threatened before driving off on a motorcycle.
Fan was apparently not intimidated by this threat and quickly jumped in his van and sped off after the dog thief. Surveillance camera footage from outside of a nearby roadside gas station then shows the van plowing forward at full speed, apparently out of control, with the dog hunter and his motorcycle caught on the fender, smashing straight through a pillar on the sidewalk before crashing into the side of the shop.
The suspected dog thief, a 42-year-old man surnamed Luo, was declared dead at the scene. Also found were six dog carcasses stuffed inside black bags.
Afterward, Fan’s family claimed that Fan merely meant to frighten the dog thief — not ram him through a pillar and wall — but had simply got the gas pedal confused with the brake pedal in the heat of the moment.
At the trial, Fan’s wife repeated this defense, which was accepted by the court.
In the end, Fan was found guilty of reckless driving and manslaughter. He was sentenced to three years in prison with a three-year reprieve.
A similar incident occurred in September of last year when a restaurant owner in Hubei’s Yichang city was chased down and run off the road by a vengeful pet owner.
The restaurant owner was not killed in the crash and later turned himself in to police, admitting that he had been hunting neighborhood dogs with a crossbow for use in his specialty dog meat hot pot. When officers inspected his car, they found his trunk and backseat lined with eight dog carcasses.
