A Pittsburgh man Wednesday was charged with stabbing a pit bull with a box cutter multiple times inside his North Side apartment during an argument with a woman, critically wounding the dog.<\/p>\n
Corey Hayward, 47, was arguing with Ranelle Touchstone in the 1110 block of Sheffield Street in Manchester on Tuesday night when he stabbed the dog, who is named Champ, according to a criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
Champ, who police described in court records as \u201clarge,\u201d was \u201csecured in a bathroom\u201d while the pair argued, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n
The relationship between Hayward and the woman was unclear in court records. Police also did not identify Champ\u2019s owner.<\/p>\n
During the argument, Hayward \u201cpulled out a box cutter from his pocket and began antagonizing Champ, while swinging the blade in front of him,\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n
Touchstone told police Hayward \u201cwas intoxicated, on drugs and was making statements about the devil coming,\u201d the complaint said.<\/p>\n
Hayward then stabbed the dog, the complaint said. Touchstone ran out of the apartment and called 911 from a neighbor\u2019s apartment.<\/p>\n
Police said they were dispatched around 10:25 p.m. Responding officers found Hayward on the building\u2019s front stoop, kneeling and holding down the dog, the complaint said.<\/p>\n
The \u201cdog needs to be put down,\u201d Hayward said, according to police.<\/p>\n
A blood trail led from the apartment to the front stoop.<\/p>\n
Hayward refused to \u201clet the dog up from his hold,\u201d the complaint said. Police later secured Champ \u201cto a railing\u201d to separate the two.<\/p>\n
Police said the bloodied dog had \u201cmultiple deep lacerations\u201d to his back, chest, stomach, leg and right side. The dog was actively bleeding.<\/p>\n
Champ\u2019s wounds \u201cwere deep and thick enough to see fat, tissue and muscle,\u201d according to the complaint.<\/p>\n
Paramedics arrived but Hayward refused treatment for two bite wounds on his hands, the complaint said. Police said Hayward provided an inaccurate home address.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter questioning and corroborating statements provided, it was determined that Hayward was the primary aggressor and could have removed himself instead of interacting with Champ,\u201d Pittsburgh police Officer Adam Germeyer wrote in the complaint.<\/p>\n
Hayward was taken into custody without incident. Paramedics took him to Allegheny General Hospital and authorities later moved him to the Allegheny County Jail, the complaint said.<\/p>\n
The woman was required to turn Champ over to the city\u2019s animal control officers, which is standard policy, the complaint said.<\/p>\n
Police later charged Hayward with one felony count of aggravated cruelty to animals and a misdemeanor count of cruelty of animals.<\/p>\n
A district judge released him on nonmonetary bail during his Wednesday afternoon arraignment hearing, court records show.<\/p>\n
Hayward\u2019s attorney was not listed Thursday in court records. Hayward did not return phone calls seeking comment.<\/p>\n
The dog was set to be taken to an emergency pet hospital. His condition was not available Thursday.<\/p>\n
Police spokeswomen did not immediately return an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Pittsburgh man Wednesday was charged with stabbing a pit bull with a box cutter multiple times inside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-260935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}