Wednesday, May 2, 2012

New York State Man Shoots 6 Horses over Dispute with Neighbor

New Jersey Herald reports

State police say a 75-year-old upstate New York man has been charged with fatally shooting 6 of his neighbor's horses after they wandered onto his property.

Troopers say Lauren McMaster likely shot the horses Saturday after they wandered onto his land in the rural Chenango County town of New Berlin, 50 miles southeast of Syracuse.

Police say they arrested McMaster Sunday and charged him with criminal mischief and cruelty to animals.

Troopers say McMaster used a 12-gauge shotgun to kill the horses. Police say he and the horse's owner had a long-standing dispute over the neighbor's horses and cows wandering onto McMaster's property.

McMaster is being held in the Chenango County Jail on $500 cash bail. It couldn't immediately be determined if he had a lawyer.
Does anyone else think it's a slap on the wrist to charge the guy like that?

Please leave a comment.

13 comments:

  1. So the neighbor refuses to control his animals, and this man is arrested for defending his own property? Note that this has been going on for a while. I have to wonder how many times McMaster called the police and got nothing done.

    But we've established that your side doesn't respect property rights.

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    1. Defending his own property? Are you shittin' me?

      This sounds more like one of those indignant gun owners who said, "How dare you."

      Delete
    2. You don't spend much time in this society, do you? At a stop light, I once watched a man pick up his McDonald's sack off the seat of his truck and drop it out his window on the road. That's an illustration of a general disregard of the rights of others and of our public spaces that I've seen and others have seen.

      I don't know the whole story here, and I'm looking forward to the outcome of the Zimmerman case, but the general message is, don't get involved. Don't resist the social decay. Something has to change about this.

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  2. "But we've established that your side doesn't respect property rights."

    And we KNOW that your side does. Nothing says "I respect property rights", like shooting SIX horses. Good thing you weren't out there with them or the tally would be six horses and one horse's ass.

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    1. O.K., Democommie, do tell us what your solution would be. As we saw, this problem isn't a one-time event. The neighbor's animals crossed the line repeatedly. If your property comes onto my land repeatedly, it's my property.

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    2. Having property less than a mile away from where this happened and knowing the alleged shooter and the owner, it's a miracle that the two partys haven't shot each other before now. This is a grudge between two neighbors and unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how one values human life over animals, the horses became the vehicle of frustration.

      Before the shooting, the NY Troopers were called to settle the dispute on April 20th and 26th. What did they do to mitigate the risk of this situation boiling over, which it did a day later? Everyone in the town of New Berlin, New York knows the history of these folks. It's a disappointment that it happened, but, not a surprise.

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    3. ...that's "parties", not "partys."

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  3. he really showed his neighbor, not !!!! whos the dumb ass here. he going to jail and will have to pay alot of money to attorneys, for what horses in a field. some elses property or not shooting the horses was not the answer its called law suit what happened to neighbors helping each other. 3 of the horses were in foal too

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  4. Guns are not the answer to a problem like this.

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  5. Mikeb said,
    "Guns are not the answer to a problem like this."

    I guess they haven't heard of fences in that neck of the woods.
    orlin sellers

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    Replies
    1. Yes, indeed, a good fence would have done the trick.

      Delete
  6. "I guess they haven't heard of fences in that neck of the woods.
    orlin sellers"

    I'm guessing that they would know that orlin is an idiot.

    It is more than passing strange that the fence issue hasn't been brought up by the articles I've seen (and I looked at about 10 of them). Horses will go through fences but not usually for pasture, unless they're pretty damned hungry.

    According to the latest news reports I've seen, the defendant shot four horses one day and two the next--without bothering to call the police. I'd say he's an asshole, who else would shoot the horses and not go to the cops or the owners?

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  7. "At a stop light, I once watched a man pick up his McDonald's sack off the seat of his truck and drop it out his window on the road. That's an illustration of a general disregard of the rights of others and of our public spaces that I've seen and others have seen."

    And cutting loose with a 12 Ga. would be an appropriate response to littering? You're defending the shooter's "right" to deal out vigilante justice, by shooting someone's horses, for no reason other than he's "fed up" with the system and is taking the law into his own hands?

    "If your property comes onto my land repeatedly, it's my property."

    In what country is that true? You're going to have retract that bit of idiocy or show the applicable statute which conveys ownership of property from one party to a another without due process and how it applies to animals.

    ReplyDelete