BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KBAK/KBFX) — Security camera video posted on Facebook Friday has caused an uproar in Bakersfield. The video came from Rina Graciliano’s Ring camera.
“The video was taken from my driveway camera and as soon as I saw the notification of some movement on my front yard, I immediately opened it and then I saw the lady kicking her dog,” Graciliano, said.
She tried confronting her neighbor, “I ran out there and tried to talk to her, ask her why she was kicking her dog, but she didn’t speak English, there was a language barrier.”
Sunday afternoon, dog owners protested in front of the woman’s house.
Mark Anthony Raimondo, a criminal defense attorney says one part of the video stands out in particular, “She’s trying to teach the dog something, using the old school style, a little bit of discipline. He’s a small dog, so I don’t know why she’s kicking the dog, it seems kind of odd. But right here, when she kicks it right here, right in the face, I mean that’s a little too much, no matter what county you live in.”
Raimondo said the woman could be looking at a misdemeanor charge, “In the real-life terms, depending upon her record, things like that, she most likely gets some type of classes, maybe a fine, maybe a minor criminal record that could be expunged later. This is not the type of case anyone would go to jail on.”
Graciliano tells Eyewitness News animal control cited the woman but did not take the dog away because it had no visible injuries.
“Has she put the dog in some kind of danger? Unwarranted, unnecessary danger for its own safety? Kicking anything in the face, you know, could be pretty bad, there’s no other legal reason to do it, there was no self-defense there, or trying to protect somebody else from the dog,” Raimondo said it could be a good case for the district attorney to send a message to everybody to control their temper when controlling their pet.
