A military veteran was jailed for breaking a car window to free a dog trapped inside.
The whole incident started when 46-year-old veteran, Michael Hammons, was in a strip mall parking lot in Athens, Georgia, and heard someone say there was a dog in distress in a hot car. The bystanders were waiting for police to arrive.
Hammons came and saw the pup panting inside the Mustang. He kicked into ‘savior’ gear and quickly jumped into action.
Without a second thought, Hammons took a part of his wife’s wheelchair and smashed it on the windows, saying, “We can’t let this dog die.”
After Hammons pulled the dog away from the vehicle, bystanders said he took the Yorkshire terrier to a shaded area and gave it water.
When the car’s owner, 22-year-old Elantra Cunningham, came out of the store, she saw the shattered pieces of glass and called for the cops to arrest Hammons.
Despite being told that his actions were in good faith, the owner accused Hammons of criminal trespass and had him thrown behind bars.
The current Georgia laws — which state that someone is allowed to break a window in order to save a person — does not have any such laws to protect our animal friends.
Several people have since rallied behind Hammons, including a local Ford dealer who offered to replace the smashed car window for free.
The district attorney for the Superior Court of Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties, Ken Mauldin, said he advised the car’s owner to drop the charges. She agreed. Deputies on duty mentioned they did not want to make an arrest at first, but Cunningham’s persistence forced them to do so.
“I knew there’d be consequences, but it didn’t matter,” Hammons said. “Glass, they make new glass every day, but they could never replace that dog.”