A Florida man is accused of shooting his neighbor’s cow several times after the animal came onto his property, law enforcement officials said.
The incident happened on May 13 in North Fort Myers, ABC News reported.
The cow’s owner said his neighbor had been “angry in the past about livestock jumping the fence and threatened to shoot the animals,” officials with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook.
Members of the sheriff’s Agriculture Unit were called to the scene on reports of animal cruelty. That’s when they found the cow with five wounds to its body, chest and leg. It was alive but not able to walk, Fox News reported.
Deputies inspected the fence that split the properties and did not find any problem with it that would have allowed the cow to escape, WFTX reported.
Because of the injuries, the cow had to be euthanized, ABC News reported.
After obtaining a search warrant, detectives said they found a .22 caliber gun that Hung Trinh allegedly used. It was located in a shed on Trinh’s property.
Trinh is now facing charges of aggravated animal cruelty and grand theft of a commercial farm animal, WFTX reported.
The neighbor who owned the cow raises livestock for commercial purposes, Fox News reported.