Sylmar Man Gets Jail Term, Fine for Shooting, Bludgeoning Dog

A Sylmar ironworker was sentenced Wednesday to serve 90 days in jail and ordered to pay $750 to provide care for homeless dogs because he shot a stray dog and bludgeoned it to death with a shovel.

Charles Skippen, 31, was also placed on three years’ probation by San Fernando Municipal Judge Roy M. Carstairs.

Skippen found a stray dog rummaging through garbage outside his home last November. He blasted it with a 12-gauge shotgun and beat it to death with a shovel as the wounded animal tried to crawl beneath a parked car, prosecutors said.

Skippen argued that he was defending his children, who had been threatened by the animal. The prosecution contended that he shot the dog only because he was annoyed that his garbage cans had been disturbed.

He was convicted by a jury June 26 of one misdemeanor count each of cruelty to an animal and discharging a firearm within city limits.

The judge, calling the killing “an act of willful and wanton cruelty,” ordered Skippen to donate $750 to three groups that care for stray dogs--the Fund for Animals, Actors and Others for Animals and the Doris Day Pet Foundation.