A dog returned to its Bluffton home with a limp. Then a neighbor was arrested
A Bluffton teenager was put behind bars late last week after reportedly admitting to police he had shot his neighbor’s dog with a pellet gun.
Tarrell Lee Brown, 18, was charged Saturday afternoon with a felony count of ill treatment of animals.
A 46-year-old resident of a neighborhood near Pritchardville Elementary School told police his dog “Max” returned from his granddaughters’ house — located directly behind his home — with a limp early Friday morning. He took Max to a local veterinarian’s office, where an X-ray revealed a pellet in the dog’s front-right shoulder, according to a report from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.
Witness interviews led police to Brown, who lives on a neighboring street. Brown told a deputy he had shot the dog because it came into his yard “all the time,” the report said.
The deputy noted Max had a “quarter-inch hole” above his right shoulder where he was struck by the pellet.
Brown was granted a $50,000 surety bond. Court records indicated he posted bail around 3 p.m. Tuesday, but inmate records showed him still incarcerated at the Beaufort County jail.
The felony charge of ill treatment of animals is punishable by a $5,000 fine and a prison sentence between 180 days and five years.
