A Bronx man who filed a lawsuit demanding clarification of the mysterious circumstances of his dog’s death at an ASPCA hospital received word recently that employees saw a vet kicking and punching his pet Rottweiler before it died. The bereaved owner, 58-year-old Rafael Lopez, began sobbing when he learned of the allegations against the doctor, John Morehead. "They are more [like] animals than the animals in there," he said of the ASPCA.
When Lopez’s beloved 10-year-old canine fell ill three years ago, he took it to the ASPCA Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital on the Upper East Side. "He was my baby," he told the Daily News. "I brought the dog there thinking they would save my dog. I killed him by taking him there." When Bullet died Lopez buried his departed pet in the Bronx’s Highbridge Park—but the saga was far from over. A few days later ASPCA investigators demanded to see the corpse, telling Lopez that someone at the hospital “was killing dogs.” They took Bullet's body in for examination but never returned it and never revealed the cause of death. "We always believed there was a coverup [by the ASPCA]," said Lopez's lawyer George Dazzo.
Now three hospital employees have come forward saying they saw Morehead kick the sick animal hard before it died—one claims he punched the dog when it moved at him. Morehead dismissed the charges: "You may know more about this than I do," said the vet, who now works at Animal Kind Veterinary Hospital in Park Slope. He wouldn’t comment on why he left the ASPCA.
