Kingwood family says worker hit dogs with a wrench
KINGWOOD, TX (KTRK) -- A Kingwood family is upset after a man working for CenterPoint hit their dogs with a wrench late last month in their own back yard.
They tell Eyewitness News the worker showed up unexpectedly one morning to work on their meter. When he got to the back yard, he was greeted by their two Weimaraners: Flash and Shutter.
The dogs barked at the man and he swung his wrench at them two different times. The incident was caught on their surveillance cameras.
FULL VIDEO: Surveillance video shows worker hitting dogs
In the surveillance video, you see him swing the wrench that's in his hand and hit one of the dogs in the face. Then he hit the other dog on the side as she tried to run past him. Marina Willcox was watching from the living room with their four-year-old.
"I go outside to see what's going on and this guy goes, 'I'm from CenterPoint. I'm going to work on your gas meter,'" she said.
The family tells us the man left the yard for a moment and they realized one of the dogs was bleeding. Mike Willcox says when he went to the front to confront the worker, he was not at his truck.
"Shortly after, I hear my dogs start to bark again and I realize the guy's back in our back yard to work again and my wife had let the dogs back out," Willcox said. "So I rush back here and about that time I see him come around the corner and he's swinging his wrench again at the dogs on the other side of the yard."
CenterPoint sent us the following statement Sunday afternoon:
We have determined that a CenterPoint Energy contractor was at this address on this date. CenterPoint Energy does not condone or tolerate abuse of animals by our employees or our contractors. We have notified the contract company and they have assured us that they will conduct a full investigation into the incident.
The incident happened just before Easter. The Willcox family posted the video Sunday morning and it received more than 50,000 views in the first six hours.
