Michigan Humane Society's Cruelty Investigation Department has concluded its probe in the killings of more than a dozen farm animals at the Catherine Ferguson Academy.
The investigation team said that dogs killed the animals at the urban farm attached to the Detroit charter school for young mothers and pregnant teens.
They arrived at this conclusion after veterinarians analyzed the carcasses of five goats and eight chickens that were found dead Friday morning on the campus near I-96 and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Two chickens were injured in the attack.
"The veterinarian who examined them is very familiar with dog bites," Mark Ramos, senior investigator said. "She is considered an expert on dog fighting. ... Their wounds are consistent with dog bites."
Ramos said that the dogs could have entered through the holes in the fence. The investigative team is also unsure if the deaths were caused by a certain type of dog or by one or multiple dogs or if a human set free the dogs into the area.
"If you're out there trying to kill animals, you're not going to get puncture wounds on their rear ends and back legs," Ramos said. "It was more consistent with an animal that was being chased around and attacked by another animal."
The team is also uncertain whether the gate where the goats were placed was closed or not; or if the dog just wandered and noticed the animals in there and attacked them.
Principal Asenath Andrews said that the killing of the farm animals was terrifying. "It is the most heinous, despicable, malicious act I've ever personally witnessed," Andrews said. "It's like being in a bad, bad movie."
The animals are part of an adjoining urban farm that is run by the students. They tend to the animals, produce vegetables, milk the goats and process pasteurize milk and cheese.
"Some of them have been going to that school four years straight. They bonded with the animals," she said. "They would brush them, take care of them, feed them. It really shocked them when they were killed. I saw a couple (girls) crying," said 17-year-old Brittney DeJarnette.
