Georgia man accused of shooting, killing neighbor's dog with pellet gun

CUMMING, Ga. — Police believe a man accused of shooting and killing his neighbor's dog did it on purpose, according to documents from the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office.

Carlos Garcia-Lopez, 50, faces a felony animal cruelty charge on suspicion of firing a pellet gun at the dog while his neighbor wasn't at his Cumming, Georgia, home.

The neighbor told investigators he and his fiancee had gone out to dinner Friday night, according to an incident report obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. When the couple returned about 10 p.m., they found their 4-year-old Miniature Pinscher lying on the floor upstairs in a pool of blood.

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The man looked at the dog’s injury and saw a small wound on its front right shoulder, the report said. According to officials, he determined the dog was shot in his backyard and came into the house, where it eventually died.

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The next morning, the man decided to take the dog’s body to a veterinary clinic to get a postmortem X-ray. The photos showed a bullet lodged inside the dog’s body.

The man told deputies he didn’t have any problems with any of his neighbors and didn’t know who would want to hurt his dog. He showed a deputy the trail of his dog’s blood from the backyard, through a dog door and into the house, according to the report.

The deputy said that based on the location where the dog seemed to have been hit, the shot was likely fired from the back deck of the house next door, which is owned by Garcia-Lopez. The deputy went next door to explain what happened, the report said.

The deputy asked Garcia-Lopez if he had any firearms, and the man told him he had several, including two Glocks, a shotgun, a rifle and a pellet gun. He said his wife and two children, ages 19 and 15, also had access to the guns.

As the men talked, Garcia-Lopez confessed he had used a pellet gun to shoot the dog. He said he had been having problems with dogs coming into his yard.

Garcia-Lopez told the deputy he contacted animal control about the issue, but he was told there was nothing they could do.

“It is believed that Mr. Garcia-Lopez maliciously and intentionally killed the dog,” the deputy said in the report.

Garcia-Lopez was booked Saturday into the Forsyth County Jail. He made his $5,610 bond hours later.

Cox Media Group