Susie's Law (House Bill 1690) is a 2010 North Carolina state law which authorizes up to two years in jail for convicted perpetrators of cruelty to animals.
The law is named for "Susie", a part pit bull, part German Shepherd, which as a puppy was rescued by a man who found her on August 20, 2009, in Greenfield Park in Greensboro, North Carolina, having been set on fire, in torment and left to die. [1]
The man took Susie to his nearby home where he then contacted Guilford County Animal Control to take her to a veterinarian. Susie was found to be suffering from severe second and third-degree burns over most of her body; her ears were burned off, and she had a broken jaw and teeth. [2]
An animal cruelty investigation was launched by Guilford County Animal Control, [3] but due to limited resources the investigation was taken over by a detective with Greensboro Police Department who set up a crimestoppers tip line. After a few months a tip was received and Lashawn Demaro Whitehead was arrested and charged with animal cruelty. [4]
Susie was adopted by Donna Smith Lawrence, who had been seriously injured in an attack by a pit bull, which she had befriended, several months prior. Donna and her husband, Roy, reside in High Point, North Carolina. [2]
The law reclassifies the "malicious abuse, torture, or killing" of an animal from a Class I to a Class H felony, with the ten-month potential period of confinement. [5] LaShawn Whitehead received a two-year prison sentence on conviction of indecent liberties with a minor and burning his girlfriend's personal property, according to records of the North Carolina Department of Correction. At the time abuse of Whitehead's own dog would have netted no jail time, but Whitehead was found guilty of abusing an animal owned by another person, which brought jail time. [5]
Susie's Law was passed unanimously in both the North Carolina State Senate and North Carolina House of Representatives and was signed into law by North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue, and took effect on December 1, 2010. Passage was possible through intense citizen involvement when Susie's abuse became public, and fund-raising appeals met with great success.
The 2013 film Susie's Hope by Uplifting Entertainment focuses on the Lawrences' story and their work to protect vulnerable animals. Emmanuelle Vaugier, a Canadian, is cast as Donna, Burgess Jenkins, a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as Roy, and Andrea Powell as Ramona Hodges, Donna's close friend and neighbor. Jon Provost, former child actor on CBS's Lassie , appeared as then North Carolina State Senator Don Vaughan, a Democrat from Greensboro who pushed for passage of Susie's Law. Willette Thompson portrays Marsha Williams, the outspoken director of the Guilford County Animal Shelter in Greensboro. The name of LaShawn Whitehead is changed in the film to Shawn Griffin, with Cranston Johnson cast in the part. [6] [7]
Now a certified therapy dog, Susie is regularly taken to schools, churches, and hospitals to warn of the danger of animal abuse and to promote kindness and respect. In 2014, the American Humane Association named Susie its "Hero Dog" in the category of "Dog Therapy". [2]
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is an American animal rights nonprofit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. PETA reports that PETA entities have more than 9 million members globally.
Greensboro is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in the United States, and the most populous city in the Piedmont Triad metropolitan region. At the 2020 census, its population was 299,035; at the 2022 census estimate, its population was 301,115. Three major interstate highways in the Piedmont region of central North Carolina were built to intersect at this city.
Guilford County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population is 541,299, making it the third-most populous county in North Carolina. The county seat, and largest municipality, is Greensboro. Since 1938, an additional county court has been located in High Point. The county was formed in 1771. Guilford County is included in the Greensboro-High Point, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Greensboro–Winston-Salem–High Point, NC Combined Statistical Area.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing animal cruelty. Based in New York City since its inception in 1866, the organization's mission is "to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States."
A puppy mill, also known as a puppy farm, is a commercial dog breeding facility characterized by quick breeding and poor conditions. Although no standardized legal definition for "puppy mill" exists, a definition was established in Avenson v. Zegart in 1984 as "a dog breeding operation in which the health of the mill’s dogs are disregarded to maintain a low overhead and maximize profits". They are cited as being a result of increased demand for household pets, especially after WWII. The Veterinary Medical Association of the Humane Society of the United States defines the main characteristics of a puppy mill as "emphasis on quantity over quality, indiscriminate breeding, continuous confinement, lack of human contact and environmental enrichment, poor husbandry, and minimal to no veterinary care."
Dog fighting is a type of blood sport that turns game and fighting dogs against each other in a physical fight, often to the death, for the purposes of gambling or entertainment to the spectators. In rural areas, fights are often staged in barns or outdoor pits; in urban areas, fights are often staged in garages, basements, warehouses, alleyways, abandoned buildings, neighborhood playgrounds, or in the streets. Dog fights usually last until one dog is declared a winner, which occurs when one dog fails to scratch, dies, or jumps out of the pit. Sometimes dog fights end without declaring a winner; for instance, the dog's owner may call the fight.
An animal control service or animal control agency is an entity charged with responding to requests for help with animals, including wild animals, dangerous animals, and animals in distress. An individual who works for such an entity was once known as a dog catcher, but is generally now called an animal control officer, and may be an employee or a contractor – commonly employed by a municipality, county, shire, or other subnational government area.
Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse, animal neglect or animal cruelty, is the infliction by omission (neglect) or by commission by humans of suffering or harm upon non-human animals. More narrowly, it can be the causing of harm or suffering for specific achievements, such as killing animals for entertainment; cruelty to animals sometimes encompasses inflicting harm or suffering as an end in itself, referred to as zoosadism.
A crush fetish is a fetish and a paraphilia in which sexual arousal is associated with observing objects being crushed or being crushed oneself. The crushed objects vary from inanimate items, to injurious and/or fatal crushing of invertebrates, or vertebrates.
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is an American nonprofit organization that focuses on animal welfare and opposes animal-related cruelties of national scope. It uses strategies that are beyond the abilities of local organizations. It works on issues including pets, wildlife, farm animals, horses and other equines, and animals used in research, testing and education. As of 2001, the group's major campaigns targeted factory farming, animal blood sports, the fur trade, puppy mills, and wildlife abuse.
World Animal Protection, formerly The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) is an international non-profit animal rights organization that has been in operation since 1981. The charity describes its vision as: A world where animal rights matter and animal cruelty has ended.
The Animal Legal Defense Fund is an animal law advocacy organization. Its stated mission is to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals through the legal system. It accomplishes this by filing high-impact lawsuits to protect animals from harm, providing free legal assistance and training to prosecutors to assure that animal abusers are punished for their crimes, supporting tough animal protection legislation and fighting legislation harmful to animals, and providing resources and opportunities to law students and professionals to advance the emerging field of animal law. In addition to their national headquarters in Cotati, California, the Animal Legal Defense Fund maintains an office in Portland, Oregon.
Dogs Trust, known until 2003 as the National Canine Defence League, is a British animal welfare charity and humane society which specialises in the well-being of dogs. It is the largest dog welfare charity in the United Kingdom, caring for over 15,000 animals each year. Dogs Trust's primary objective is to protect all dogs in the UK and elsewhere from maltreatment, cruelty and suffering. It focuses on the rehabilitation and rehoming of dogs which have been either abandoned or given up by their owners through rehoming services.
Chris DeRose is an American animal rights activist, and recipient of the 1997 ‘Courage of Conscience’ International Peace Award and a former actor. He appeared as a regular on the ABC series San Pedro Beach Bums, General Hospital, Cagney and Lacey, CHiPs, The Rockford Files and Baretta. He also had lead or guest roles in 14 feature films. He was an on-camera reporter for the television shows Hard Copy and Inside Edition. Earlier, he worked as a police officer and as an investigator.
Dog fighting in the United States is an activity in which fights between two game dogs are staged as a form of entertainment and gambling. Such activity has existed since the early 19th century in the United States and was gradually prohibited in all states. It continues as an underground activity in both rural and urban locations.
Bitter Blood: A True Story of Southern Family Pride, Madness, and Multiple Murder (1988) is a non-fiction crime tragedy written by American author Jerry Bledsoe that reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Bitter Blood is composed of various newspaper articles and personal eyewitness accounts of several homicides in 1984 and 1985. The setting for the majority of the book is Rockingham County and Guilford County in rural North Carolina.
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A Dog Named Gucci is a 2015 documentary film by Gorman Bechard that chronicles the story of an Alabama puppy set on fire, and the man who came to his rescue. The film made its American festival debut in February 2015 at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival.
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