ROCKVILLE, Md. – A judge has sentenced a former Baltimore police officer to 12 times the recommended sentence for killing a puppy.
Disregarding sentencing guidelines that called for a maximum of three months in jail, the judge sentenced Alec Taylor of Silver Spring to three years in the county jail, with two years suspended. He’ll also serve five years of probation.
“You need to go to jail and you will,” Montgomery County Judge Richard Jordan told Taylor.
Taylor pleaded guilty to beating and strangling a 7-month-old Jack Russell terrier named Rocko last February after the dog messed a carpet in the home he shared with his girlfriend Deborah Avila and her 6-year-old son.
“Rocko was not just a dog, he was member of my family,” Avila tearfully told the judge.
“I’m ready to accept responsibility,” the ex-cop told the judge before being taken away by sheriff’s deputies.
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