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Oakland Man Rewarded For Reporting Animal Cruelty

OAKLAND (KCBS) - An Oakland man has been sentenced to four years in prison for animal cruelty. His neighbor, meanwhile, is being praised for catching the man, beating his pit bull, on videotape.

 

Police say that the video taken by Vince Faltis was the evidence needed to arrest Charles Black, leading to his conviction earlier this month on two counts of felony animal cruelty.

KCBS' Bob Melrose Reports:

Faltis was recently rewarded with $2,500 from the Humane Society as well as a helmet and football tickets from the Oakland Raiders.

 

Faltis spoke at a recent ceremony in his honor at the East Bay Humane Society headquarters, calling on his Oakland neighbors to do their part to stem a general tide of violence.

 

"Obviously through this incident, there are resources available to make those changes but they can't use the resources if people don't raise their hand or pick up the phone and raise awareness about where the help is needed."

 

The pit bull seen in the graphic and disturbing video, named Blueberry, survived what authorities said was repeated beatings and has been adopted by another family.

 

(© 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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