Man arrested on suspicion of abusing dog outside Strip hotel
A California man was arrested after he was seen abusing a dog Thursday in front of a Strip hotel, according to a recently released arrest report.
Officers were dispatched to the Strip around 1:45 p.m. Thursday in response to a 911 call reporting that a man was punching and choking a 10.9-pound Yorkshire terrier in front of Encore, the report said. An officer at the Metropolitan Police Department’s Fusion Center was able to watch video of the incident on remote cameras.
The officers found the man at the Encore valet and used his California ID to identify him as Miguel Rivera, the report said. Rivera denied owning the dog and refused to speak with officers.
Video showed Rivera “spin the canine by the leash in a helicopter motion” several times before throwing the dog to the ground and hitting it with an unidentified object 13 times in less than a minute, the report said. He then lifted the dog and let it “dangle above the ground as he walks on the sidewalk,” then “hangs the canine on the decorative fencing in front of the Encore and ran off, leaving the dog to slowly suffocate,” the report said.
Police said that if passersby hadn’t helped the dog, it would have suffocated.
Clark County Animal Control said the dog was microchipped, and the chip identified Rivera as the dog’s registered owner. Animal Control took the dog to a veterinarian who found that the dog’s eyes had petechiae, broken capillary blood vessels commonly seen in strangulation victims’ eyes, the report said.
Rivera faces four counts of willful or malicious torture/maim/kill a dog, cat or animal and four counts of torturing, maiming or killing an animal to threaten or terrorize, Las Vegas Justice Court records show. He was released from jail on Friday on the condition that he stay out of trouble and not get any pets, court records show.
His next court date is set for Monday.
Contact Alexis Ford at aford@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0335. Follow @alexisdford on Twitter.