A 19-year-old Riverside man was arrested Monday on a federal charge alleging that he slit the throat of a dog and posted a video of the dying puppy on Snapchat, officials said.
Angel Ramos-Corrales was named in a federal criminal complaint filed Friday, charging him with animal crushing — a federal crime of purposely subjecting certain types of animals to serious bodily injury not related to hunting or other lawful activity, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a news release.
The animal crushing statute carries a sentence of up to seven years in federal prison.
Riverside Police received a complaint on Feb. 13, after Ramos-Corrales allegedly posted a video to Snapchat, showing a small brown dog with a large laceration on its neck, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said, citing the affidavit in support of the complaint.
In the video, Ramos-Corrales allegedly made a series of statements including, “I’m cold-hearted,” and then kicked the dog, which he had named Canelo, who was still alive at the time.
The same day, police went to Ramos-Corrales’ home, where they found him with “fresh blood stains” on his clothes and fresh cut wounds on his hand, according the news release. Officers also found the severely injured dog in the home, lying on a bed, along with blood spatters in both the bedroom and bathroom.
Officers found a roommate during the investigation, who told them he had locked himself in his bedroom after seeing blood and the dog wrapped in a rug, while Ramos-Corrales was yelling in his own room.
Animal control officers responded to the home and removed the “barely alive dog,” the news release states. A veterinarian then had to euthanize Canelo after determining the pup had fractured bones in his head and chest, officials said.
In early March, Ramos-Corrales told FBI agents during questioning that he bought Canelo as a small puppy from a Craigslist posting several months earlier. He claimed he didn’t recall the details of what he had done to the dog.
Ramos-Corrales was arrested by the FBI and the Riverside Police Department Monday morning and appeared in court later the same day. He was released on a $15,000 bond after the court appearance and did not enter a plea Monday, the Associated Press reported.