Shocked residents of an extended stay motel frantically called 911 after watching a man toss a dog inside a crate off a second-story balcony.
Channel 2's Ross Cavitt who talked to police who said they could hardly believe it until they reviewed the motel's security video.
"I think it takes a sick individual to mistreat a little animal. I don't care if it's a dog or cat or whatever," said resident Don Dugan.
Both people who live at the All-Around Suites and police still can't fathom what video cameras caught happening on the second floor of the extended stay.
Investigators told Cavitt that Marcell Sibley is the man captured on camera grabbing his small Yorkshire terrier by the neck, slapping it, and then seconds later coming out of the room with the dog in a crate and tossing the whole thing down to the concrete below.
"The owner of this dog then went downstairs to the pavement where the dog and the kennel were laying, scooped them both up and then went to the trash can and discarded them both in the dumpster," said Officer David Baldwin of the Marietta Police Department.
A witness called police who arrived minutes later and found the dog barely alive in the dumpster.
After allegedly disposing of the dog, Sibley fled the area, but there were plenty of witnesses to the event, including the motel's video cameras.
Sibley was later arrested at his Smyrna home, later telling an officer he snapped and threw the dog off the balcony in the kennel because he was mad at the dog.
According to police, felony cruelty to animals is punishable by one to five years in prison.
"I feel it's the same difference as if it would be a little child, it's something that can't help itself," Dugan said.
"Children and animals really rely solely on the people that they live with," Baldwin said.
Sibley later bonded out of jail.
The small dog suffered broken bones and spinal injuries and it was unclear if it would survive.
Editors' Picks
The Latest
