Teacher accused of drowning raccoons at school will not face criminal charges

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In Ocala, Florida, the teacher accused of drowning raccoons and an opossum in the presence of students during an agricultural class, will not face criminal charges according to the state attorney’s office. In a memo released on Friday, Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Brad King stated the teacher did not “torment’ the animals and was not necessarily cruel.

The Forest High School science teacher,  Dewie Brewton was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation and retired just a few days after the disturbing video of the animals being drowned in trash cans filled to the top with water on May 15 went viral.

According to the Gainesville Sun, Judge King’s decision was based on the following:

“During the post Miranda interview, the teacher explained that in one of his classes, his students raise chickens as a project that remain in a pen on campus. He indicated that the students cared a great deal for the chickens with many of them giving the birds names. Over the course of a few weeks, the teacher indicated that approximately 8 chickens had been killed, with their dead carcasses left behind by the culprit. Over time, the teacher determined that it was likely raccoons that were destroying the students’ farm animals. He determined it was best to trap these animals to stop the incessant and unnecessary killing of the students’ birds.”

Brewton stated he wasn’t allowed to shoot the two raccoons and opossum since guns are prohibited on campus and didn’t want to bludgeon them because that would have been “too brutal and messy.” His decision to drown them was his solution, however the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission admits drowning is not a recommended means of euthanasia. The state attorney stated that killing nuisance animals is legal, and to bring animal cruelty charges against the teacher, the State would have had to prove he unnecessarily tortured the animals;  creating doubt on “the ability of the State to prove the allegations beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt.”

(Photos of teacher drowning raccoons via video freeze shots)

Read the previous article here.

Read more here.

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21 COMMENTS

  1. Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Brad King, let’s put you in a cage and stick you in a can filled with water and see if you classify that as tormenting! It’s not up to each individual person that make that decision!

  2. Are you kidding???????????? these Raccoons were scared to death, couldn’t breathe. Held under by shovels and that wasn’t torture? What King your an idiot. Are you related to steve king who also hates animals. Oh my gosh! If anyone can find this guy’s email address we need to tell him how we feel.

  3. So keeping an animal under water and preventing it from coming out and then adding more water so it would drown is not torture or abuse and the state attorney stated that killing nuisance animals is legal? What type of crime is cruelty to any animal? Why didn’t this scum of a teacher call animal control to capture the raccoons if he thought they were killing the students chickens?Laws regarding animals must be uniform in all states so things like this don’t happen. Now he is collecting a pension for his cruelty.

  4. That decision is bullshit! He had the animals in a trap. The BEST thing he could have done was take, or have them taken to an area appropriate for release. If anyone thinks drowning while trapped isn’t torture, then that person is an idiot!

  5. To the people in Florida: vote this sub-human maggot Judge King out of office during your next local election cycle.
    To Judge King: I pray that someone kidnaps YOUR child/grandchild, put him/her in a trash can and drowns them. Then we’ll hire the most expensive lawyer in the country to get the murderer freed from ANY charges because they did not torment the child and was not necessarily cruel. Judge King NEEDS TO BE euthanized as he is a sadistic animal for his twisted assessment of this egregious act.

  6. So she is welcome to murder any innocent defenseless animals she can get her hands on? I can hardly wait for “karma” and/or “hell” for him and all who supported him and condoned this cold-blooded murder!

  7. Great job Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney Brad King! You just showed a school full of students that it is OK to drown animals and get away with it. What was wrong with TRAP AND RELEASE?? And you wonder why we have a nation full of heathens and thugs. Some State Attorney you are. Nice lesson on CRUELTY. You should be ashamed.

  8. WTF, seriously!! Absolutely disgusting!! So let’s teach the kids that it’s ok to kill innocent animals that were fighting for their last breath instead of TRAP & RELEASE!!! As long as these heartless scums are in politics & judges lets these social paths free, nothing will change & all the animal abuse/torture/neglect will continue & all the hard work from everyone trying to catch these so called humans is done for nothing & why have laws in place ????????????????

  9. I think that Judge King needs to be removed from the bench! This was a cruel and sadistic act and there should have been prison time!

  10. This sick minded low life needs to be tortured and drowned. Sometimes you wonder about where some of these ill minded subhumans come up with harming animals. Give the POS a taste of his own medicine. Hope he slowly rots.

  11. Brad King (whom I will not refer to as any sort of attorney) showed his total ignorance and arrogance just by his ludicrous statement alone that this piss poor example of a teacher did not torment the raccoons – HELL, YES He did! And in addition to the abuse and cruelty he inflicted on these animals, he promoted, condoned and taught his students it was OK to treat animals like trash. No criminal charges, what a bunch of weak willed idiots does Florida have as attorneys? Spineless jerks who look the other way because they are basically useless wastes, meaning Brad King and Dewie Breton – who I both hope get a fatal encounter with an 18 wheeler.

  12. And we wonder after that why there are school shootings in Florida? That is exactly the kind of “teachers” that grow the “school shooters”.

  13. All you animal lovers in Florida need to step up and get involved in your goverment to not let this judge get away with this sentence. And to make sure he does not get reelected. Only you have the power to change things. If you do nothing nothing will change.

  14. I don’t know why so many people commenting have stated the “judge” should be voted off the bench. This case didn’t even make to court for a judge to decide what should or shouldn’t happen to the asshole teacher for his cowardly acts of cruelty. Brad King is the Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney who took on the role of judge and jury.

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