On Nov. 21, 2004, Grizz was sleeping, as he often did, on a private drive that serves the Greenups and a few neighbors, when Weaver came by to check on his Christmas tree farm.<br /><br />Weaver said he was driving about 5 mph when Grizz woke up, ran straight at his 2004 Toyota pickup and let out a squeal. "I absolutely did not intentionally run over the dog," Weaver told The Oregonian newspaper of Portland shortly after the incident.<br /><br />He described Grizz as "an old, senile dog" and added, "If you can't keep them on the leash and protect them, you're inviting them to get run over."<br /><br />When the case came to court, prosecutor Rusty Amos told a very different story, based on the accounts of Mark Greenup's partner, Therese Smetana, and the couple's two teenage daughters. Amos contended in court that Weaver ran over Grizz four times, breaking bones and inflicting other injuries so severe that the dog was euthanized.<br /><br />Family members came running when they heard the commotion involving Weaver and Grizz. The two teenagers tried to rescue Grizz from under the truck and were almost injured because Weaver wouldn't stop moving, Greenup said.<br /><br />"The girls were screaming, Daddy, Daddy, please, please, help' ... while they were trying to pull him out from under there," Greenup said. "I'm affected for the rest of my life," said the 52-year-old logger.<br /><br />Last spring, Clackamas County Circuit Judge Douglas Van Dyk convicted Weaver of first-degree animal abuse -- the intentional or reckless injury of an animal -- and of recklessly endangering another person, and sentenced him to 90 days in jail.<br /><br /><br />
<br /><br /> http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/mayes052306.html <br />
<br /><br /><br />tommays
