Video footage showing a dog on a leash being pulled alongside a moving vehicle in Chicago last week has led to an animal cruelty charge, police said Tuesday.
The incident recorded on camera took place Saturday in Labagh Woods Nature Preserve on the city’s Northwest Side.
A woman can be heard in the footage yelling at a driver to “stop your car” as the man drives a vehicle while holding a dog’s leash out the window, pulling the animal alongside it.
In the video, the animal appears to slow down and stop running as it is then pulled by the vehicle. The woman filming the footage can be heard begging the man to “please stop” and tells him she is calling police.
The video has been viewed more than 38,000 times on Facebook and shared more than 1,200 times.
Cook County Forest Preserve Police confirmed they were called to the area Saturday and were investigating the incident. They later said an arrest was made Monday evening and Nelson Benitez, of Chicago, was charged with misdemeanor cruelty to an animal.
Police said Benitez, 69, was placed under arrest at his home.
"Based on interviews about the account, inspection of the dog, and conditions in the home, our officers determined there was not cause for removal of the animal," the Forest Preserve District said in a statement.
Benitez is scheduled to appear in court in February. The misdemeanor charge can carry a sentence bewteen one day and 364 days in jail.
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Police said the dog was OK, but police did not immediately release what happened to the animal following the arrest.
