Charges dropped against man arrested for rescuing dog from hot car

(Image credit: Twitter.com/BPetersenWSB)

published 19 May 2015

Charges have been dropped against a Georgia man who broke a car window in order to rescue a dog trapped inside.

Michael Hammons, a 46-year-old veteran, saw the dog inside a Mustang parked in an Athens shopping center and, worried about the high temperature inside the vehicle, used a piece of his wife's wheelchair to smash the window. Georgia law allows a person to shatter a window to save a person but not an animal, and when the dog's owner found out what happened, she insisted charges be filed, 11 Alive reports. Hammons was ultimately arrested for criminal trespass, but on Monday, the local district attorney said that the dog's owner agreed with his decision to drop the charges.

The story gained national attention, and community members quickly rallied around Hammons. A Ford dealer offered to replace the window free of charge, and a local pet store owner said they would help pay for anything the Hammons family needs as a result of the arrest. "The laws need to be changed to protect the animals, not necessarily the people," Mark Martin told 11 Alive. "We are the voices for the animals; they can't speak for themselves."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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