INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Tim Conatser: Firefighter Who Gunned Down Dogs Receives Death Threats, Resigns

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 08:34 PST, Feb 26, 2015

Tim Conatser, the volunteer firefighter who made headlines after killing his neighbor’s dogs and posting a picture on Facebook along with a threatening message, has resigned from his position, and is now receiving death threats in connection with the act.

Conatser claimed to have killed the dogs, two Labrador retrievers, after allegedly complaining to their owner that he wanted the animals kept away from his livestock, as the Inquisitr previously reported. Pulido Rodrigo, the dogs’ owner, has spoken out about the incident, saying his neighbor never contacted him about the pets.

Rodrigo claims that he first learned of his dogs’ death through social media. Speaking with Fox 4, he struggled to comprehend the incident.

“I’m in shock. I don’t know. I don’t understand these people. Bad people, I don’t know,” he said.

The Union Valley Volunteer Fire Department, where Conatser was a firefighter, has received a strong backlash in the days since the picture was posted to Facebook, including death threats aimed at Conatser. According to fire chief Edward Ragsdale, response to the former firefighter’s actions has been global.

“We’ve had I don’t know how many hits,” he noted. “We’ve had (them) from as far away as England, Portugal, Canada, every state in the union.”

Ragsdale asserted, however, that the fire department did not condone Conatser’s actions.

“This is an individual that’s a volunteer with our department,” he noted. “We can’t be responsible for his actions when he’s off duty.”

Conatser was at first suspended from his position as a firefighter before resigning, according to the Daily Mail. Though animal cruelty investigations have been launched by both the Hunt County Constables Office and the SPCA, the firefighter may have been within his legal rights to shoot the dogs, under laws governing the locality.

A friend of Conatser’s, Kevin Forester, asserted that the firefighter had indeed spoken with the dogs’ owner, after he witnessed the animals attacking a calf on his property.

“So he went over to his neighbor’s and told him that his dogs was getting in his barn and attacking his animals, to please — ya know — keep ’em at home, put ’em on a leash, build a fence, do something,” Forester recalled.

The investigations will determine whether the ex-firefighter will face charges in the dogs’ slaying.

[Image via Twitter/ @ViralSpell]

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