Back in the fall,
Bluestem interviewed Austin's National Socialist Movement leader Sam Johnson, who had been trying to recruit new members by
organizing anti-immigration rallies.
He's back in the news, but not for advocating racial segregation or stripping all American people of color as well as Jews of their citizenship. This time the headline in the Rochester Post Bulletin concerns the cruel treatment of another species,
Neo-Nazi cited for animal mistreatment:
Austin police have cited a local man who led neo-Nazi rallies downtown
for abandoning his pit-bull dog when moving out of a rental home.
Samuel
James Johnson, 29, is being cited for a misdemeanor count of
mistreating an animal and is scheduled for a March 1 hearing in Mower
District Court.
According to the police report, an Austin
community service officer got a report about 4:40 p.m. Feb. 1 of the
abandoned dog from the property owner at 304 Third Ave. N.W., from
where Johnson had moved. The dog was left behind in a locked cage on
the home's front porch with no food or water, the report says.
The officer found the male pit bull in the locked cage with feces inside the cage and no food or water.
With
the dog appearing to be vicious with its growling and barking, two
other officers helped tranquilize the animal to transport it to the
city pound. . . .
This situation most likely spells a sad end for the abandoned dog. Was it vicious before being left caged without food or water on a porch in the dead of a particularly harsh Minnesota winter? Would its attitude had been better had not Johnson left him confined to soil the cage? Odds are that no one will try to discover if the abandoned dog responds to humane treatment.
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