By Robert Philpot
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
HUNT COUNTY, Texas — DFW TV stations were abuzz Wednesday with a story about a Hunt County volunteer firefighter who allegedly boasted on social media about shooting two neighborhood dogs and posted a photo of the dead dogs on social media.
The photo, which has since been taken down, shows two bloody dogs on snowy ground with the post “Somebody didn’t put any truth in my warning. Keep your damn dogs off my property.”
Wednesday’s stories reported that the firefighter had been suspended. KDFW/Channel 4 updated its story Thursday morning to report that the firefighter has resigned and could face criminal charges. Fox 4 contacted the dogs’ owners, who found out what happened to Gordo, a black Labrador retriever, and Spike, a yellow Lab, on social media. The owners told the station they had never received any warning or complaints about the dogs.
The Union Valley Fire Department confirmed to the stations that the man who allegedly made the post had been a volunteer firefighter there for the past four months. The fire department is based in Royse City, roughly 40 miles northeast of downtown Dallas.
The Hunt County Constable and SPCA are investigating this as a case of possible animal cruelty, WFAA/Channel 8 reports. Hunt County Constable Terry Jones told News 8 that a homeowner has the right to protect property and family from an animal on the property if a threat exists, but it’s unclear whether there was a threat in this case. The fire chief told News 8 that the suspect voluntarily went to the constable’s office to give his side of the story.
KXAS/Channel 5 reported that the firefighter’s name is Tim Conatser. Union Valley fire chief Edward Ragsdale said that although the department can’t be responsible for its volunteers when they’re off-duty, the fire department has been getting outraged messages on social media from around the world.
“We’ve had I don’t know how many hits,” he told NBC 5. “We’ve had (them) from as far away as England, Portugal, Canada, every state in the union.”
A family friend told CBS 11 that Conatser had found the dogs attacking a calf in his barn a couple of days previously. The friend says the neighbors were warned. “So he went over to his neighbor’s and told him that his dogs was getting in his barn and attacking his animals, to please ya know keep ‘em at home, put ‘em on a leash, build a fence, do something,” said Kevin Forester.
On Thursday, CBS 11 had a follow-up report in which the constable said he found no evidence of the dogs having attacked Conatser’s livestock and that he might face animal cruelty charge. The station also talked to the man who found the dogs, who were dumped several miles from Conatster’s home.
Snopes.com reports that the fire department’s Facebook page has since been closed, and indeed, a Google search for it resulted in a dead link. But Snopes did capture a status update before the page closed:
“As previously stated, we do not condone the recent actions of one of our firefighters. We are following our policy in removing him from our department. This is now a civil/criminal matter that we have no jurisdiction over. Please forward all concerns to local law enforcement and/or the SPCA.”
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