Postman Who Shot Dog Gets 6-Month Term

A former postman was sentenced Thursday to six months in jail and three years probation for shooting a family dog to death while delivering mail the day after Christmas.

San Fernando Superior Court Judge Meredith C. Taylor handed down the sentence despite a plea by Floyd Bertran Sterling, 34, of Pacoima, not to be sent to jail but to perform community service instead.

“I do care about animals,” Sterling told the judge. “I do care about the little boy that was involved in the incident. I’m sorry about that. But doing jail time wouldn’t do my family any good and it wouldn’t bring back the dog.”

Sterling drew a .22-caliber revolver and fired one bullet into Skippy, a mixed-breed German shepherd, just as its owner, Tammie Brody, came out of her house on Bartee Avenue in Arleta to give the mailman a bottle of vodka for Christmas.

Brody’s son, Brian, 10, witnessed the shooting.

Sterling told police after his arrest that Skippy had bitten him on several occasions and was menacing him on the day of the shooting. But Brody said Skippy was friendly to the postman. An investigation of the bullet’s path showed the dog was facing away from Sterling when it was shot.

Sterling, who was suspended without pay by the Postal Service, resigned March 29 after being notified that the service was taking action to fire him, a spokesman said. Postal authorities picked up the $685 bill for Skippy’s elaborate funeral at a Calabasas pet cemetery.

Brody did not attend Thursday’s court hearing but said in a telephone interview that she had mixed feelings about the sentence.

“I don’t like to see anyone go to jail,” she said. “I’m sorry this whole thing happened to begin with.”

Sterling was convicted Feb. 21 after pleading no contest to a charge of felony cruelty to an animal. Under an agreement between prosecutors and Sterling’s lawyer, Sterling faced a maximum sentence of one year in jail and 36 months probation.

On Thursday, Judge Taylor said Sterling should spend time behind bars because the shooting endangered the neighborhood and because he had been convicted of two previous offenses that “involved a degree of violence.”

Sterling was convicted in 1982 of misdemeanor spousal abuse and in 1988 of carrying a concealed revolver in his car. Also, Taylor said, Sterling was convicted in the mid-1980s of second-degree commercial burglary.

“Noting that he has these convictions . . . I do believe that community service is not the best condition to impose, but that he should in fact spend time in custody,” Taylor said.

Meanwhile, a Municipal Court judge Thursday declared that possession of the gun used to shoot the dog violated the terms of Sterling’s probation on the earlier concealed-weapon conviction. Sterling will be sentenced to six months in jail for that violation, which he can serve concurrently with the sentence imposed Thursday, court officials said.

In addition to the jail term and probation, Sterling was ordered to pay $500 to a restitution fund for crime victims and to undergo twice-monthly counseling.

Sterling’s attorney, Salvatore P. Ciulla, told Taylor that Sterling should be spared incarceration because he has just found a new job and because his wife and four children depend on him.