Commentary: Michael Vick, dog fighting and the ASPCA

by Fred Lindau

Again, we come to understand, as Americans, that if you have enough status or money, you can get away with anything. Where I live, the Humane Society is grossly overpopulated with pit bulls due to this sort of thing. I've even seen first hand people who go to the Society to "adopt" a dog only to take it into the exercise yard to test it's aggression level, to see whether or not it can fight [and it's not only pits, though they are a favorite candidate for this.]
Three men were arrested for this, three men admitted to having a hand in torturing and executing dogs that "performed poorly" in test fights. This means that they killed the dogs that refused to kill on cue. Two of them ratted out Michael Vick and now he's looking to plea down his sentence to jail time under a year?
Injustice doesn't even begin to describe this. But it's okay because Michael Vick is a sports icon, and our sports icons can do no wrong. If my dogs get over zealous during play time and one of my neighbors decides to call Animal Control, believing that I'm killing my animals, I'll have officers at my door within the day with a "needless animal cruelty" citation. But Vick obtain dogs for the sole purpose of training them to fight and kill each other, and get away with a reduced sentence and suspension from sports training? In Atlanta, animal cruelty carries a penalty of between one and five years in prison and up to fifteen thousand dollars in fines, for the average citizen, that is. Apparently the laws are different for members of the Atlanta Falcons.
Would even the average punishment for felony animal cruelty be enough for Michael Vick? If you ask me, barring him from owning animals wouldn't be a punishment so much as it would make him say: "oh, darn, I guess I'll never have a family dog." I'd rather the punishment be something more detrimental to his "name." Taking animals away from an animal abuser isn't a punishment, fining a professional athlete is a joke, and sentencing him to a year or less in prison? Well, he'll have plenty of time to write that "tell all" or discuss options for a movie of the week.
Bringing him back down to the level of your average citizen and taking him off the Falcons' roster would be a step in the right direction, but having him do something along the lines of sending out letters to his neighbors that say "Hi, I'm So and So, and I killed dogs for fun and profit." and the general public's reaction to that, would be justice.