Deputy Made GA Couple Cut Off Dog's Head: Lawsuit

CRAWFORD COUNTY, GA — A Georgia couple has filed a lawsuit after they say a sheriff's deputy forced them to cut off their own dog's head after the deputy shot and killed him.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Joe Goodwin and Tosha Dacon are suing Crawford County, Sheriff Lewis Walker and deputies James Hollis and Wesley Andrew Neesmith for $75,000 in the Dec. 1 incident.

Neesmith responded to a complaint about the dog, Big Boy, while Goodwin was at work and shot him after the 2-year-old dog allegedly lunged at him, the AJC reported. Afterward, Hollis arrived and reportedly told Goodwin he had to cut off the dog's head for a rabies test or be arrested.

Goodwin started to do so, in front of his children, and when he was "too emotionally and mentally distraught to comply," Dacon had to finish the job, according to the lawsuit.

"Under extreme emotional duress and distress, and under threat of incarceration and physical harm, Plaintiff Goodwin was forced to decapitate the dog with a knife,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit claims that in addition to suffering physical and mental pain, Goodwin lost his job as a result of the incident. The couple is suing for $75,000.

Walker has told the AJC that Goodwin had been advised by the county health department about options regarding the dog's decapitation and testing. In a previous report about the incident from the AJC, a Georgia Department of Public Health official said only a trained veterinarian or animal control officer should remove an animal's head if rabies is suspected.

Department spokeswoman Nancy Nydam told the AJC that, while it's rare, it is possible to contract rabies from a dead animal's saliva or brain tissue.

On online petition asking Walker to fire Hollis over the incident had collected nearly 200,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning.

Crawford County is near Macon in central Georgia, about an hour and a half south of Atlanta.

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