Global Courant
A North Carolina man has been hit with a misdemeanor charge after allegedly stabbing and killing a dog in a park on Monday while its owner was playing pickleball.
James Wesley Henry, 43, was charged with animal cruelty charges and is being held at the local detention center in Asheville on $10,000 secured bond, according to prison records reported by local newscast Asheville Watchdog.
Liesbeth Mackie, the owner of Beignet, an 11-year-old mixed race, told the local outlet that while playing pickleball at Weaver Park in northern Asheville, she and others heard the man screaming and arguing with himself before the “not -provoked” attack.
“She was lying peacefully in the shade — she was tied up with a really long leash,” Mackie said of her dog. “Then my (pickleball) partner said, ‘Someone is hitting your dog.'”
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Eric Hulin, who was also playing pickleball at the time, told Asheville Watchdog that he “saw the assailant, certainly with all his might — with what I thought was a closed fist at the time — hitting the dog, really.”
“I turned and looked at the dog and saw his last few screams and twitches,” Hulin said. “It was covered in blood. There was blood everywhere. It took me a while because I wasn’t sure what was happening.”
Hulin noted that the man walked away as if “nothing had even happened.”
Asheville is located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Buncombe County, North Carolina. (Pawel.gaul via Getty Images)
Zen Sutherland, who said he was also at the scene, reported joining others following the suspect and seeing him drop a knife onto the sidewalk before surrendering to police.
Between 2010 and 2022, Henry was arrested 16 times in Buncombe County, according to Asheville Watchdog records.
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Asheville Police Department Captain Michael Lamb said that “the man killed the dog with a knife, effectively disemboweling it,” according to the local paper.
“We’ve had over the past few months, whether it’s mental health, addiction or both, we’ve seen a lot of that erratic behavior in the city,” Lamb said. “Usually this isn’t something we’ve seen in the Weaver Park/North Asheville area, but it’s seemingly starting to spread.”
This view shows the pickleball court in Weaver Park in northern Asheville, North Carolina. (Google Maps)
Asheville has been plagued in recent years by rising violent crime that has coincided with an exodus of the local police force, which has fallen by more than 40%. Asheville Police Chief David Zack told Fox News Digital last fall that his department is struggling to maintain visibility after more than 100 officers have left since May 2020.
In April, city leaders announced a 60-day initiative to improve conditions in the inner city during the crisis in police personnel.
An Asheville Police Department vehicle is displayed in downtown Asheville, North Carolina. (Fox News digital)
Tom Mackie, Liesbeth’s husband, reportedly blamed liberal city leaders for the incident amid the wave of crime and homelessness in Asheville.
“The city council and the mayor have my dog’s blood on their hands,” said Tom Mackie. “Asheville is no longer safe.”
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“The way our dog was brutally killed could have been my wife,” he added. ‘It could have been a child. Crime in Asheville is spreading like a cancer.”
Jon Brown is a writer for Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to [email protected].
