A St. Paul man has been found guilty of killing his girlfriend’s dog after he got angry that the German Shepherd took their child’s hotdog and then bit him when he hit it with a baseball bat.

Ramsey County District Judge Joy Bartscher convicted 51-year-old Rondie Antwon King last week of felony mistreating an animal for shooting the dog in the head in a St. Paul alley on June 13, 2021. Sentencing was set for Jan. 10.

Rondie Antwon King (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

King waived his right to a jury trial, opting for a bench trial, which was held July 25.

King’s attorney did not submit evidence or call witnesses to testify, Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Kathryn Long wrote in the state’s memorandum of law.

The defense in an Aug. 1 memorandum conceded that King killed Rocco, but argued the state has not proven it was unjustified, according to Long.

Facebook messages and witness statements show King was angry at the dog and also at his girlfriend for caring more about the animal than him, Long wrote.

“These reasons are not legal justifications for killing a companion animal,” she wrote. “They are both simply motives for the intentional execution of a sentient being and beloved companion. … The defendant was angry and wanted to assert power and control over his girlfriend through killing her dog.”

Bartscher concluded the state proved the elements of the criminal charge: He intentionally and “unjustifiably killed (the woman’s) pet dog when he killed the dog in anger without … any reasonable explanation.”

Prosecutor: King ‘hunted Rocco down’

Officers responded to a report of shots fired in the 1000 block of Wakefield Avenue and found the dog dead in the alley with a single gunshot wound to the head. A 9mm spent shell casing lay next to him.

Video surveillance showed a white Buick SUV speeding down the alley right after the gunshot. The SUV belonged to King’s girlfriend.

She told police that King had been drinking alcohol and became enraged with Rocco after it took a hotdog from their 4-year-old son. She said King attacked Rocco with a baseball bat, causing the dog to bite him in the arm.

She said she intervened to protect Rocco and drove around all night to keep King from further injuring or killing the dog.

The woman’s adult daughter confirmed to police the dog did not harm the child. She explained that King was bitten because he had punched the dog, adding, “when you put your hands on an animal, and you do it for so long, the animal might do something back.”

Following a search warrant, police found Facebook messages between King and the woman that day that showed they were arguing about the dog. She told him she was going to take Rocco to the humane society in the morning.

“Or just come home and go to sleep then … I’ll take care of the dog,” King wrote.

The woman responded: “I don’t want you to take care of the dog.”

“I want to but are you thinking about his well-being or my well-being. …Seems like you thinking about the dog more. … If so I’ll just get it over with,” King responded.

She went home around 4 or 5 a.m. and took Rocco for a walk, but King pulled up and ordered them inside the SUV, the criminal complaint said. King dropped the woman off at the residence and left with Rocco, returning without him.

It was the last time she saw Rocco alive.

“(The woman) tried desperately to keep her dog away from the defendant knowing that he wanted to kill her companion animal who she described as her daughter’s best friend,” prosecutor Long wrote in the state’s memorandum. “But the day after the defendant’s initial aggression towards the dog, the defendant hunted Rocco down.”

King used a gun he got from his adult son to kill the dog, according to the prosecution.

“The defendant left Rocco in an alley behind a stranger’s house to die alone,” Long wrote. “The defendant drove away as fast as he could because he knew what he did was unjustified. The defendant knew what he did was a crime.”

Motion for new trial

On Monday, King’s attorney, assistant public defender Stephen Grigsby, filed in court a motion for a new trial, writing it should be granted “on the grounds the verdict and finding of guilty is not justified by the evidence, or is contrary to law.”

When asked by the Pioneer Press on Wednesday to elaborate, Grigsby said in an email the court “simply announced a rule of law that is not supported by a legally valid construction of the statute.”

“The defense position is that it is not a crime to kill an animal,” Grigsby continued. “It is a crime to inflict avoidable suffering.”

The judge addressed that argument in her order, concluding that if King had killed Rocco with the woman’s permission because the dog was “suffering from some untreatable illness or injury, we would be in a different situation because the killing could perhaps have been justified.”

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However, King made no such claim in support of his decision to kill Rocco, the judge wrote. “He only presents an unsupported argument that the dog was euthanized in an alley because (the woman) could not afford to have a veterinarian euthanize the dog.”

A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Nov. 1.

Court records show King’s criminal history goes back to 1997, when he was convicted of domestic assault in Ramsey County. His other offenses were for possession of stolen property in Ramsey County in 2000; possession of meth in Ramsey County in 2005; and first-degree assault in Ramsey County in 2011, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

At the time of Rocco’s killing, King was wanted out of Anoka County on DWI and possession of marijuana charges. He was convicted of an amended careless driving charge in June 2023 and a 90-day jail sentence was stayed for a year, during which time he was on unsupervised probation.