A man was arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty Saturday after a dog was found dead outside a Mead Valley home and video purporting to show the canine being killed was posted online, authorities said.
Deputies from the Perris Station responded to a residence in the 17500 block of Clark Street about 3:30 p.m. Friday and located the deceased dog in the yard, a news release from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department stated.
Christopher Samuel, 54, was arrested the following day at the home after investigators obtained search and arrest warrants, according to the release.
He was booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center on charges of animal cruelty and negligent discharge of a firearm.
A graphic video circulating on Facebook that was posted Saturday morning purportedly shows the dog being fatally shot.
The footage was taken by the dog’s owner and uploaded to his daughter’s Facebook page. The 90-second footage shows the canine walking around the property while someone appears to be pointing a gun at it.
A short time later, shots ring out and the dog’s body can be seen lying lifelessly on the ground.
“He locked him in his yard, shot him, then shot him a second time in the head to make my dad even more angry,” Facebook user Alexis Lemmon wrote in the post, which identified Samuel as the shooter.
The Riverside County Department of Animal Services, which also responded, acknowledged the video in a post on its Facebook page Saturday night.
“The video shows a man shooting another man’s dog in an unincorporated area near Perris. The dog was inside the closed yard of the shooter’s property,” the agency said in the post.
The statement continued that there would be a “thorough investigation” into the case.
Authorities have not yet released a cause of death for the dog.