Now...I didn't mean to be broadbrushing that particular
breed of GOPer Christian men too tightly, in speaking of
their violent tailswag...but jeepers, this guy they're
talking about seems to fall right in, despite himself,
don't he? Proud of it, he is.
***
The architect of the Project 2025 manifesto for remaking
the federal government to serve Donald Trump allegedly
told colleagues that he killed a neighbor's dog with a
shovel because it was a nuisance.
Kevin Roberts, who is now president of the right-wing
Heritage Foundation, told New Mexico State University
colleagues and dinner guests that he killed the pit bull
around 2004 because it was barking and bothering his
family, according to sources who attended a dinner at his
home and described the incident to The Guardian.
“My recollection of his account was that he was
discussing in the hallway with various members of the
faculty, including me, that a neighbor’s dog had been
barking pretty relentlessly and was, you know, keeping
the baby and probably the parents awake and that he kind
of lost it and took a shovel and killed the dog — end of
problem,” said Kenneth Hammond, who was then chair of the
university’s history department.
A professor and her spouse also recalled hearing a
similar account directly from Roberts, then a NMSU
history professor, at a dinner at his home, while three
other professors say they heard the story around that
time from colleagues who got it directly from Roberts.
None of the sources say they asked him to provide
additional details about an incident they found to be
unsettling.
“I think that probably people were not eager to engage
with him over this," Hammond said. "It sounded like a
pretty crazy thing to do and people didn’t want to get
into it at that point."
Marsha Weisiger, a former colleague who is now an
environmental history professor at the University of
Oregon, recalled Roberts telling her and her husband
about killing a neighbor's pit bull with a shovel.
“My husband and I were stunned," Weisiger said. "First of
all, that he would do such a thing, and second of all,
that he would tell us about it. If I did something
horrific, I would not be telling my colleagues about it."
Weisiger recalled Roberts saying the neighbor also had
puppies that he considered killing as well, although none
of the sources told The Guardian that he felt the dogs
posed any threat to his family – although that's how he
characterized the incident in a statement when asked for
comment.
“This is a patently untrue and baseless story backed by
zero evidence," Roberts said in a statement. "In 2004, a
neighbor’s chained pit bull attempted to jump a fence
into my backyard as I was gardening with my young
daughter. Thankfully, the owner arrived in time to
restrain the animal before it could get loose and attack
us.”
Roberts identified the former neighbor who owned the dog
as Daniel Aran, who his spokesman pointed out was
sentenced to 78 months in prison for cocaine trafficking
in 2017, and The Guardian tracked him down for an
interview about the incident two decades ago, when he was
16 years old.
“When I was younger, I was wild, but I gave respect to
get respect," said Aran, who has been released from
prison and is now the owner of a small construction
company. "Now I’m more about work and family, and I’ve
always been a dog lover, an animal lover, since I was a
little kid. I’ve always had dogs.”
Aran specifically recalls one of his dogs disappearing
around 2004, while he was breeding pups to help make
money for his family's household.
"Yes, definitely, my dog, Loca, my little female," Aran
said. “I had one female, and that was her. She was a
little, little thing like this. She was a tiny, cute
little thing. She went missing, and we never could find
her."
He grimaced when asked to comment on claims from Roberts'
colleagues about him allegedly killing the dog.
"Man, you never know what’s inside someone’s head," he
said. “I’m not here to make up stories or to say he did
it, but it was right around 2004 when all that happened,
that Loca was missing. I wish I could say, yeah, I know
this fool did that, but I can’t tell you that. But what I
can tell you is that my dog went missing, and we never
found her. She wasn’t at the dog catchers.”
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