Local man arrested for animal cruelty

According to a report by Nadia Ramdass of KENS 5, a television station in San Antonio, Texas, a local man was arrested after abandoning a trailer holding seven horses in San Antonio.

According to the San Antonio Police Department, Justin Harvey, 41, of Fort Scott was arrested Sept. 2 and charged with cruelty to livestock. He later posted $5,000 bond.

The report said Harvey's tractor trailer broke down along Interstate 35 sometime on Sept. 1. The next morning a passerby noticed the horses inside the trailer at a truck stop and called Animal Care Services and 911.

A veterinarian who was on the scene said the horses most likely had not had anything to eat or drink for at least eight hours. Even though the trailer was vented, the authorities said the temperatures inside the trailer were between 130 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, the report said.

As a result, two of the seven horses in the trailer had died and the others were determined to be in serious distress and severely malnourished.

The horses being transported came from Tucker Brothers, LLC, a local horse-trading operation run by Raymond Tucker. Tucker told The Tribune that he had sold the horses to a man in South Fort Worth, Texas and that the horses were being returned because they were considered to be undesirable.

"It was just an unfortunate incident and poor judgment on [Harvey's] part," Tucker said. He later added, "The horses had been mine and I sold them to a guy that I've been selling horses to ... they take them onto the border."

Tucker said his knowledge of the incident is "sketchy" but he was told that Harvey's truck broke down and that he watered the horses prior to leaving for the night while waiting for his truck to be fixed. He said animal rights activists are always in the area waiting for someone to make a mistake. He said the horses were sent back because the Mexicans will not allow a horse to cross the border if it has a puncture wound, hernia, or an open sore.

"It's just the Mexicans jacking with you because they can," he said.

According to the report, Harvey said the horses had been purchased in Eagle Pass, Texas, and were being transported to Kansas when the truck broke down.

Tucker added, he feels the charges will eventually be dropped.

"It won't end up to a rat's a - -," he said. "It's just stirring up more publicity that doesn't need to be stirred up. That's the way I feel about it."

Tucker later added, "That was the situation, an unfortunate situation ... All I can tell ya is s - - - happens."

Tucker attributed the condition of the horses to the fact that they had been in Texas at the Mexican border for a week before they were sent back. He added that in El Paso, Texas, it costs $200 to have a dead horse unloaded if it dies during transit.

"If you lose a horse in transit, which is common on killer type horses, why, they are going to charge you 200 bucks to unload him," he said. "Well I'll just leave him on my truck and I can haul him back home and bury him with a Bobcat for a lot less than 200 bucks."

Tucker went on to say that there are two female veterinarians in Mexico that have a reputation for rejecting horses that do not please them, which could also describe the condition of the horses in Harvey's trailer.

"For Christ's sake, they are going to a slaughter house, but if they've got anything that's not just to suit these two Mexican women veterinarians, the kick them back and that's what this kid had on his truck," he said.

According to the report, the five surviving horses are currently under the care of ACS and Horse Rescue.

To view the video of Nadia Ramdass's report on KENS 5 visit www.kens5.com/home/Good-Samaritan--102118184.html