IIt is past 10 p.m. on February 15, 2019 in Augé (Deux-Sèvres), when Jean-Pierre Pin, a 57-year-old farm worker, leaves his home, a gun in his hand, and shoots three times in the direction of a dog who has ventured into the yard of his farm. The first cartridge misses the animal, the second hits it in the thorax, the third in the legs. Jagger, a 4-year-old long-haired German Shepherd, had left the vigilance of his owners, the Decanter family, who live nearby.
His death has not stopped, since, mobilizing defenders of the animal cause. “Justice for Jagger”, calls for an online petition, signed by 126,000 people to date. “I am Jagger”, could we read on the signs on the occasion of a “white march” organized on Thursday, September 2, in the streets of Poitiers, where the appellate trial of the perpetrator was being held.
“Out of step with normal behavior”
Sentenced in first instance by the criminal court of Niort, in April 2019, to one year in prison suspended for “Serious abuse or acts of cruelty towards a domestic, tamed or captive animal”, Jean-Pierre Pin is criticized from the outset by the president of the judicial appeal court, Claude Antoni: “Your behavior is largely out of step with normal behavior. “ A scowling old boy living with his parents with Alzheimer’s disease, the man had gone to bed that night after a mildly boozy dinner with friends – “Two aperitifs and two glasses of wine” – when barking got him out of bed. He then sees his dog, Gasby, a Breton spaniel locked in an enclosure, quarreling with Jagger (whose name has nothing to do with the singer of the Rolling Stones, although they had sung Walking the dog in 1964).
As he will explain to the gendarmes, Jean-Pierre Pin has already shot dead a dog in the past, ” because he [lui] had killed nine hens and three ducks ”. The investigation will also report rumors invoking the mysterious disappearance of cats in the hamlet of Magnerie, where he lives. His crime committed, the killer then goes back to bed. The next day, he burns the three casings used in the fireplace, loads Jagger’s body in his 4L van and throws it into Chambon, a nearby river, where he will be found two days later.
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