Bradenton cop shot dog, investigators say. His girlfriend, a detective, covered up the crime
Bradenton police detective Yolanda Torres and her boyfriend, Officer Jason Burchett, were getting ready for bed at her Sun City Center home on July 28 when she heard what sounded like a dog fight. She ran into the kitchen and found her dog, Buddy, biting her 5-year-old niece in the face.
Torres and her brother took the the girl to the hospital, where doctors laced six stitches into her face.
Meanwhile, Burchett took Buddy — Torres’ dog for almost four years after she won him in a Bradenton Police Department raffle — out to the nearby woods and shot the dog twice in his torso. He left Buddy there to die, investigators say.
Buddy’s unlikely survival — he was found at about 3 a.m. that night by a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputy, bleeding in the middle of a Ruskin road — set in motion an investigaton of the two Bradenton officer’s actions.
Torres, accused of lying to investigators about what happened, was issued a civil citation on Aug. 6. She’s charged with interference with an animal control officer, according to the citation and investigative reports.
Burchett is facing one felony count of aggravated animal abuse and one misdemeanor count of animal abandonment. Animal control officers recommended the criminal charges in a request sent to the State Attorney’s Office last month.
Prosecutors have yet to decide on whether to press charges.
Torres’ niece was treated at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, where she was stitched above the lip and released, according to Hillsborough County Animal Control reports.
The dog, found near the intersection of 30th Street Southeast and 19th Avenue Northeast in Ruskin, was rushed to Blue Pearl Pet Hospital in Brandon. Buddy is being fostered by another Bradenton police officer as he recovers, according to department spokesman Capt. Brian Thiers.
Torres and Burchett both declined to comment about the case on Thursday. Torres, who joined the department in January 2004, subsequently submitted her resignation from the department.
Burchett and Torres will be the subject an internal affairs investigation once the State Attorney’s Office finishes its review of the case. Burchett, who joined the Bradenton department is June 2016, is currently on unpaid administrative leave and will remain so until the internal investigation is complete.
Bradenton Police Chief Melanie Bevan did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Torres could not be charged with a criminal offense because Hillsborough County animal control officers are not sworn law enforcement officers. Likewise, animal control officers must submit formal requests to prosecutors when criminal charges are being sought.
Bradenton police familiar with dog
After Hillsborough animal control obtained Torres’ information, they visited her home on July 29, the afternoon after Buddy was found. They saw a marked Bradenton police patrol vehicle parked on the street in front of the home and an unmarked Bradenton police vehicle in the driveway.
When the officers knocked and rang the doorbell several times but go no response, they called the Bradenton Police Department and were put in contact with Thiers and Sgt. Anthony Cerniglia
The animal control officers learned that Torres got Buddy in December 2016 as part of a Christmas raffle giveaway by the Bradenton Police Department.. She had failed to update the dog’s microchip information to her name, so the sergeant who had adopted Buddy for the raffle was initially contacted when the dog was taken to the animal hospital.
After they finished speaking with her superiors, Torres came out of her home and spoke to them, the animal control officers noted in their reports.
Torres explained to the officers that she had family visiting from out of town so there were a lot of children in her home and that Burchett had let Buddy out at about 11 p.m. “to do his business but after calling the dog back several times to come in, the dog ran off,” one officer noted in an incident report.
Torres went on to claim that Burchett had gone out to look for the dog but couldn’t find him, but they thought he would come home eventually. She admitted to getting a call from Cerniglia that morning about her dog being at the animal hospital.
“Yolanda states she drove to Blue Pearl, identified the dog as hers but indicated she could not afford the bill and left the dog in the care of Blue Pearl,” the officer wrote.
The officers had Torres sign an official surrender form.
After speaking with Torres, the animal control officers received a call back from Cerniglia about the Bradenton Police Department wanting to pay Buddy’s medical bills. The director of animal control approved for the dog to be relinquished back to the Bradenton Police Department and Cernigila took custody of the dog for the department.
Less than a week later, Torres and Burchett offered another account of how Buddy was shot, during a recorded interview with animal control.
“Per Jason Burchett’s recorded testimony, following the vicious attack by dog ‘Buddy’ to his girlfriend’s niece which resulted in a serious injury to her face, Jason placed dog Buddy in his vehicle and transported the dog to a wooded area where he intentionally shot the dog causing serious injury,” one officer wrote in an Aug. 4 incident report. “Buddy was then abandoned and later found lying in a public roadway suffering from a gunshot wound, without medical care.”
Animal control official closed their case on August 17 and the case was sent to the State Attorney’s Office.
This story was originally published September 18, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
