This is a follow-up to a prior BLOG about Maggie, the Border Collie who was run over while on a cattle drive.
A Camptonville man was arrested in connection with a cattle drive hit-and-run, the Sierra County Sheriff's Department said Saturday. Justin Phillip Lombardobarton, 19, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, vandalism and animal cruelty for allegedly striking five cows, running over a cattle dog named Maggie and threatening to hit several horseback riders last Sunday.
The horseback riders were participating in the annual Reader Ranch Cattle Drive near Henness Pass in Pike City, a town in southwestern Sierra County where Sierra, Nevada and Yuba counties meet near the Middle Fork of the Yuba River. Participants in the cattle drive and ranch owner John Reader described the attack to The Union newspaper in Grass Valley.
A man in a white Jeep Cherokee drove past the cattle, stopped in the middle of the herd and then whipped his steering wheel to the right and gunned it, Reader told The Union. When riders tried to cut the driver off, he aimed toward them and then twice drove over Maggie, the ranch owner's best cattle dog who was trotting behind the cows.
Maggie sustained a severed leg and internal injuries, with vet bills totaling $9,000. Reader was unsure about injuries to the cattle, which dispersed in the high country, but told The Union they may have internal injuries.
The incident was investigated by the California Highway Patrol out of Grass Valley. When investigators determined the attack was deliberate, the Sierra County Sheriff's Department took over and used interviews with people in Alleghany, Pike City, Camptonville, North San Juan and Nevada City before arresting Lombardobarton at 11:30 p.m. Friday at Highway 49 at the Oregon Creek Bridge in Yuba County.
He was booked into Sierra County Jail in Downieville. Bail was set at $100,000. The white Jeep Cherokee was located, photographed and towed. Additional charges against Lombardobarton may follow.
LINK
1 comment:
Been following this. Karma is gonna bite this punk square in the backside, and glad I am of it, too.
I doubt the rancher will ever recover the true value of Maggie, who must be worth many multiples of tens of thousands of dollars in training time and sheer value as a working ranchhand, but I'm pleased to see that this aggressive jerk has been yanked up short by his scruff and will have to face the music.
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