An Army veteran was arrested for trespassing after he admitted to officers that he broke into a car to save a small dog “in distress,” officers say.
Michael Hammons was in an Athens store parking lot when he spotted the animal in the car next to him with no water. He smashed the driver’s side window using the foot rest of his wife’s wheelchair. He got the Pomeranian mix out of the Mustang as a group of shoppers watched.
However, when the dog’s owner came out of the store, she was “irate” at what he had done.
“She said, ‘You broke my window,’ and I said ‘I did.’ She says, ‘Why would you do that?’ I said ‘To save your dog,'” Hammons told the local news station.
(Photo: My Fox Atlanta screen grab)
The woman, who was cited for leaving an animal in a hot car, insisted on pressing charges against Hammons, deputies say.
“We didn’t want to charge him, but he told us he broke the windows and when you have a victim there saying she wants him charged, we had no other choice,” Oconee County Chief Deputy Lee Weems said.
However, if given the choice, Hammons said he’d do it again.
“I knew there’d be consequences, but it didn’t matter. Glass, they make new glass every day, but they could never replace that dog.”