A property manager in the Hebei capital of Shijiazhuang is suspected of having beaten to death two poodles owned by resident, apparently over coronavirus fears.
Recent surveillance footage from a hallway of the apartment building shows the manager wielding a steel pipe going after a woman who is clinging onto one of her dogs, trying to protect it from him.
“If you don’t kill that dog, I will kill you too!” he is reported to have shouted, according to witnesses.
An image from afterward shows the bodies of two dead poodles. Police are now looking into the incident.
It’s suspected that the manager killed the poodles because of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Last month, a Chinese health expert declared that animals as well as people need to be quarantined to avoid spreading the disease.
The World Health Organization has dismissed the notion that the virus can be transmitted by pets but that hasn’t stopped some localities from cracking down.
Local officials in one Sichuan township are reported to have gone door-to-door earlier this month, ordering villagers to hand over their pets before, allegedly, beating the animals to death.
