Hundreds of Pigeons Beaten to Death in Sumter

Sydney Cummins Created:6/10/2010 6:02:20 PM Updated: 6/10/2010 8:52:09 PM



Sumter, SC (WLTX) - The pens at the Palmetto Pigeon Plant in Sumter are missing almost 800 birds after police say the pigeons were beaten to death, some even decapitated.

For company president Tony Barwick, it was a horrifying sight.

"It looked like some wild animal had gotten into the pens and killed them. Of course, they don't know how to jimmy a door lock. So, we know it wasn't a wild animal. There were sticks laying in the pens, where you could tell they'd been beating them. It wasn't a pretty situation," he recalls. Police say they're not ruling anything out, but that it could have been kids. According to Barwick, shoe prints were found near the pens, a size six and eight.

"Since then, we've had to redo all the doors and do a new security system and put up cameras," he says. The cameras are a response to a crime he never thought he'd see.

"Why? There's got to be something better to do than destroying animals like that in the pen," Barwick says, "That's what popped through my head, 'What's wrong with someone who would do something like that?'"

Police in Sumter say they do have some leads that they're looking into.

Barwick says their total financial loss is about $14,000, with no insurance on this type of event to cover it.

From: http://www.wltx.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=88447&catid=2