Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz said Wednesday that no charges would be brought in the case of a puppy that was severely burned last September with cooking oil.
Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz said Wednesday that no charges would be brought in the case of a puppy that was severely burned last September with cooking oil.
“I can tell you that immediately after this case came up and we were in the middle of this investigation, we realized that we had to send the case back because the investigation was rather poorly done,” Saenz said.
The investigation was conducted by the Cameron County Sheriff’s Department.
That case was resubmitted to the DA’s office in November.
The investigation by the DA’s office revealed that the then 2-month-old pit bull’s burns were the result of an unfortunate accident, authorities said.
Administrative First Assistant District Attorney Edward A. Sandoval said the man who accidentally burned the puppy routinely dumped the oil he used to cook food with outside of a door adjacent to his kitchen, and on that day, like any other, he didn’t look outside before dumping the oil.
Sandoval was the lead investigator on the case for the DA’s office.
As for the puppy, which survived and was later adopted, it happened to be underneath where the man dumped the used cooking oil. Sandoval described it as simply an unfortunate coincidence.
Saenz said his office investigated two possible criminal offenses in the case and determined that neither warranted charges.
“There were two points, two issues, that were the focus of the investigation. Number one, was the actor who allegedly spilled the oil on the dog, was he criminally liable? And number two, were the owners of the dog, because the actor was not the owner of the dog, criminally liable in the care of the dog? Those are the two issues,” Saenz said.
The man who spilled the oil was not criminally liable because it was an honest accident and the original owners of the dog were not criminally liable because they had taken measures to care for the animal, the investigation revealed.
