New details released on man accused of breaking-into Austin Pets Alive!
New details on suspect accused of breaking into APA!
A man was arrested after being accused of breaking into Austin Pets Alive!, resulting in the death of one dog and the injuries of five others.
AUSTIN, Texas - A man was arrested after being accused of breaking into Austin Pets Alive!, resulting in the death of one dog and the injuries of five others.
Break-in at Austin Pets Alive!: 1 dog dies, other dogs injured after being released
Austin Pets Alive! has released surveillance video hoping to identify a person who broke in and let dogs out of their kennels. 1 dog died, others were injured and a search was conducted for missing pets.
Austin Pets Alive! break-in
The backstory:
"It's very scary," said Stephanie Bilbro. "It's definitely something that you don't imagine will ever happen," said Director of Shelter Operations at Austin Pets Alive!.
Jacob Bender was taken into custody for criminal trespass, a Class B misdemeanor.
Jacob Bender
"I think any person in their right mind would not think that that is an appropriate action to take to start just letting all these random dogs out," said Bilbro. "It's really clear in that video, he was not in his right mind."
APA! has surveillance video that captured one man yelling in the footage outside their Town Lake Animal Center location that night.
In another clip, the intruder was seen opening most of the dog kennels. He then left all the gates open, allowing the dogs to escape.
Break-in at Austin Pets Alive!
Austin Pets Alive! has released surveillance video hoping to identify a person who broke in and let dogs out of their kennels. 1 dog died, others were injured and a search was conducted for missing pets.
"More than half of them were let out of their kennel during this incident; that led to a few fights," said Bilbro. "One dog, unfortunately, did pass away from his injuries later."
APA! staff said the pets were pretty shaken up about the whole ordeal when it happened. The dogs have all since been found and are doing better now.
"They're doing pretty well now," said Bilbro. "A couple of them were able to go to foster to help with their recovery. Some of them are still here. We do have one dog living in one of our tiny homes. He was probably the most severely injured."
The keypad entry system was damaged, and they believe that is how he got inside. The shelter does have an overnight security guard, but she got hurt trying to round up all the loose dogs. Now, the shelter is looking at taking additional safety measures.
Break-in at Austin Pets Alive!
Austin Pets Alive! has released surveillance video after someone broke into its facility and released dogs from their kennels leading to dog injuries, a dog's death and a search for missing dogs. APA says all the missing dogs have been found safe.
"We don't want to scare people away with our extra security measures, but we are looking at a lot of options right now," said Bilbro.
Bilbro added that APD's Animal Cruelty Division is working to tack on additional charges, which could potentially upgrade the misdemeanor to a felony.
"The police did tell me that they were very familiar with him," said Bilbro.
Bender has roughly a dozen misdemeanors on his rap sheet, for which he has been arrested in Travis County, involving similar charges.
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin's Katie Pratt