This one’s for Trooper: Don Gaetz bill targets animal abuse during natural disasters

Image via Fresh Take Florida.

Floridians were shocked last year by the story of a dog that would come to be known as Trooper, who was tied to a pole as Hurricane Milton approached last year and rescued by a member of the state Highway Patrol.

“We had somebody decide, as Hurricane Milton approached, that it would somehow be a good thing to take his dog and chain it to a post on the interstate,” Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters at the Hillsborough  County Sheriff’s Office.

The owner, a Ruskin man named Giovanny Aldama Garcia, was charged with aggravated cruelty to animals last year after he left the dog to drown in floodwaters, shocking the conscience of Floridians and people around the nation.

“I’m proud to announce that the authorities have identified the dog’s former owners and State Attorney Suzy Lopez is now pursuing animal cruelty charges against the individual, so we said you’d be held accountable and you will be held accountable,” DeSantis added at the same event.

At that time, Lopez urged the addition of the crime to the enhanced penalty list during states of emergency, and now legislation in the Senate would do just that.

SB 150, filed by Sen. Don Gaetz, holds that a “person who during a state of emergency … in an area included in the state of emergency” commits “animal cruelty … commits a felony of the third degree.”

Garcia was actually charged with a third degree felony, so the law, if passed, would enshrine Lopez’s approach statewide as of July 1, encompassing most of the upcoming hurricane season.

Former Rep. Joel Rudman filed a House version of the same, but it was withdrawn after he resigned his House seat in order to run for Congress, as required by law.

While Rudman’s bill is temporarily off the table, a member of the House certainly could file the same soon enough.

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Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics contributed to this report.