After Shooting 2 Dogs, Kansas Mayor Surrenders

This just in from the Associated Press.  The mayor of McCune, a small southeast Kansas town turned himself in on Wednesday after a warrant was issued for his arrest in the shooting of two dogs on Sunday.

Mayor Don Call is charged with two felony counts of cruelty to animals and one misdemeanor count of criminal discharge of a firearm. He was released after posing $3,000 bond.

Call says he was just protecting his community when he shot the dogs, which apparently had been chasing some children. But the Crawford County Sheriff's Office saw it a little differently.

Call admits that he killed the animals on Sunday after warning a local dog owner a month ago that he was going to do it.

"I told him that if he did not want to take care of the dogs, that I was going to shoot them the next time," Call said. "I said that I was through playing this game and he was going to take care of them and that was back in January."

He said the city had called the Sheriff's Department several times about dogs owned by Duane Wahl, but the complaints continued. The shootings on Sunday came after the mayor received a call from a couple who said their children were being chased by the dogs.

Sheriff Sandy Horton said his department wasn't told of the chasing report.

According to the sheriff's report, Call shot the dogs with a rifle while sitting in his vehicle. The mayor then left and picked up a trailer, came back and loaded the dogs up to take to his home for disposal.

Call said he tried to call the city superintendent to dispose of the dead animals but he was unable to reach him.

Sheriff's records show the department received four calls since June 2008 complaining about Wahl's dogs being aggressive and running loose through town. Call said the city has sent Wahl letters about the dogs.

In January, Wahl told the Sheriff's Department that he was getting rid of the animals. Wahl said the dogs that Call shot on Sunday were not his.

McCune's dog ordinance, passed in 2006, says dogs running at large are subject to impoundment, and that no dogs can be "disposed of until after a minimum of three full business days of custody."