Fort Worth pet shelter worker fights off dognapper
A Humane Society of North Texas employee fought off a thief trying to steal a puppy.
Surveillance video from Wednesday morning shows a man walk into the Fort Worth adoption center and into the puppy area. A few seconds later, he walked back out with an eight-week-old Boxer puppy named Summer. But before he could get away, an employee confronted him.
Blaise Hull has only been working for the Humane Society of North Texas for two months. But the 19-year-old’s love for animals goes back to his childhood when his mom used to work at the same shelter.
“It's mainly because I grew up with them so I always wanted to be with animals my whole life and here I am,” he said.
Hull's coworkers say he's pretty quiet. But when the time came to step up Wednesday morning, that's exactly what he did.
“He had the puppy in hand,” Hull recalled. “He was walking out and I asked him what he's doing. He just keeps walking.”
The man was headed toward a nearby bus stop. Then, the confrontation turned violent.
“Eventually, he does grab me by the shoulders and jerks me around a little bit,” Hull said. “Closer to the bus stop, he jerks me around, pushes me down a little bit. I stumble. I hit the fence a little bit a couple times.”
Hull got a few minor scratches, but he still persisted.
“As he pushes me each time, I get a little bit more frustrated and angry that he's stealing my puppies since I knew they were in my care,” Hull said. “I didn't want anything to happen to my puppies.”
Eventually, Hull wrestled the puppy away and ran back to the building where coworkers called 911. He made sure Summer could go home safe later that day to her new adoptive family.
“I was scared this entire time. I was terrified,” Hull admitted. “I didn't know if he had a weapon on him or anything, but I wanted to make sure that puppy was kept safe.”
“We have a real-life superhero in our midst here. I'm very proud of him,” said Cassie Lackey with the Humane Society of North Texas. “But there's a side of me that's like, ‘What the heck were you thinking? You don't know how dangerous this man could've been.’”
Summer was adopted on Tuesday and went home on Wednesday to her new family.
The Humane Society of North Texas says they'll be changing policies to make sure their doors are now locked at all times when the front desk is unattended.
Fort Worth police are still searching for the suspect.