Following internet outrage at the bizarre online antics of a 19-year-old seen apparently abusing his own puppy, police have arrived at Gonçalo Carter’s home address and removed the animal – telling the youth he faces criminal charges for animal cruelty that could see him going to jail for a year.
Over 1100 complaints were received by police following Carter’s senseless video – posted on Youtube very much like the one posted last month of Lisbon model Luís Amorim throwing his dog from Cruz Quebrada bridge (click here).
Both cases have also enraged ANIMAL, the animal rights organisation, which has lodged criminal complaints about them, vowing that in this case especially it “will not rest” before Carter is “exemplarily punished”.
Calling the youth a “serial animal abuser”, ANIMAL refers to previous videos where Carter allegedly kills a pigeon and “threatens cats with death”.
But the youngster claims that in the case of the clip where he is seen kicking the pigeon, the bird was ‘dead anyway’.
Of the latest outrage – in which Carter’s little dog is seen being slapped, verbally abused and then hung by the scruff of the neck from a high window (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajr0biOeLTE) – the youth told journalists: “It was stupid and if I could go back, I wouldn’t do it”.
However the fact that he did has seen him receive death threats and find his home address in Camarate, near Lisbon, widely shared online, writes Correio da Manhã.
Concerns for his own safety have seen the boy deciding to stay at home and “seek police protection”, says the paper
Carter has assured CM that he “didn’t do any harm” to his dog.
“He was just getting air outside the window”, the youngster explained. “The veterinarian who took him saw that he was super healthy”.
