Crime & Safety

'Please Stop,' Woman Pleads with Man Who Allegedly Beat Her Dog with Baseball Bat

White Lake family seeks "Justice for Duke," who died after he was reportedly beaten in a "psychotic" attack and mauled by a neighbor's pit bull. The man with the bat says he was merely trying to stop a dog fight.

White Lake Township police are considering malice and abuse charges against a man who allegedly carried out a “psychotic” attack on a neighbor’s German Shepherd Tuesday morning.

Linda Lorenzen’s 9-year-old dog, Duke, was allegedly beaten by a baseball bat-wielding friend of a next-door neighbor,  The Oakland Press reports. The attack with the aluminum bat reportedly went on for about four minutes.

“I pleaded, begged and screamed for him to stop,” Lorenzen told the newspaper. “After about four minutes, the (neighbor’s) pit bull was let loose, and started mauling my dog.”

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Duke later died of his injuries, which

Duke and the neighbor’s dog have a history of aggression, according to a  WXYZ-TV report. Lorenzen said in a WXYZ interview that she was watching Duke and the family’s German Shepherd puppy, Ginger, in the back yard and stepped away briefly. In the moment she was gone, Duke scaled the fence and began fighting with the pit bull, which reportedly was on a leash.

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That’s when the friend of the neighbor reportedly began beating the dog. He disputed Lorenzen’s statement that he hit the dog 25 times, telling WXYZ that he only hit the dog twice to stop the dog fight. He also reported to police that he was bitten while trying to stop the fight Neither the neighbor or the neighbor’s friend have been identified.

Word of the attack spread like wildfire on social media, due in part of the #JUSTICEFORDUKE hash tag. A video of Duke as he lay dying on the Lorenzens’ kitchen floor was posted on the Justice for Duke Facebook page, which already has more than 6,000 likes, and shared with friends and organizations such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

A candlelight vigil is planned for Duke Saturday, with details coming on the Facebook page.

White Lake police, working with officials from Oakland County Animal Control, say they’ll wait for the results of a necropsy, the equivalent of an autopsy for humans, before presenting the evidence to prosecutors.


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