(cont.)
"I took it upon myself because my father-in-law's been talking about bringing it to the humane society to have the dog put away," the man told Inver Grove Heights police.
"... I just figured, hey, this is the cheapest way out."
The fiancee of the late dog owner heard what was happening to Precious, unsuccessfully tried to get the man to stop and raced to the Christoffels' house. When they
heard the horror story, Theis, followed by John Christoffel, raced next door, hoping to rescue Precious. Harsh words were exchanged and, according to Theis and
Christoffel, the man with the sledgehammer made threatening gestures toward them.
Christoffel ran back to his home, yelling at the man with the sledge and telling him that police were going to be called. Police were called but before they arrived,
Christoffel returned with his rifle and says he told the man "You want to play games, we'll play games."
The man with the sledge claims that Christoffel also threatened him with large hunting knives, a charge Christoffel denied.
In retrospect, Christoffel, who has no criminal record, regrets bringing a rifle into the chaos.
"I know that pulling out a gun is pretty serious," he said. "I regret that, but I just couldn't believe what was happening."
Leventhal is preparing motions to have the case against Christoffel dismissed for a variety of technical reasons. To date, pretrial hearings have been delayed twice and the
Dakota County attorney has dropped a threat to add two felony assault charges against Christoffel.
But that one felony charge hangs over Christoffel's head and stirs the passions of animal lovers.
Leventhal wrote in a letter to me that, if this case goes to trial he will be going where few, if any, lawyers have gone before.
"Christoffel intends to defend this matter on the basis that he acted reasonably, and that he had a right to use necessary force in defense of another," Leventhal wrote.
"While we have not located cases that allow the use of weapons to defend a dog, we believe that this well-recognized doctrine should be expanded to include such
reasonable conduct. Precious was not only a neighborhood dog, she was a friend of John's, and John acted to protect her life."
-- Doug Grow is at
[email protected] .