A black dog with a white underbelly spent several minutes tied to a garbage bin outside a store in Montclair's South End Business District last week, abandoned by a man who got out of an SUV, walked off on foot, and never came back. Police say the whole thing was caught on surveillance camera, and now they are trying to identify the man who left the animal behind.
According to Montclair Local, security footage shows the man tying the dog to the bin on Orange Road at about 8:45 p.m. on Oct. 13. He then walked into a nearby store at 8:46 p.m., left the building, and headed off northbound on foot without the dog. The vehicle he arrived in did not wait around either — according to SILive.com, the SUV drove south on Orange Road without him.
Police gave a detailed description of the man they're looking for: between 35 and 40 years old, about 5-foot-7 and roughly 130 pounds, wearing a black sweatshirt with pink writing, jeans, black shoes with pink laces, and a light-colored baseball cap, the department's report notes. Animal control officers responded and took custody of the dog, which was described as black with a white underbelly.
Conflicting Word on Potential Charges
Accounts of what the man could face differ. SILive.com reported that police said the man who abandoned the dog will face an animal cruelty charge, while Montclair police, per Daily Voice, described the incident as being investigated as possible animal cruelty. Neither outcome has been confirmed as final, and the man's identity has not been released.
A separate report from ABC7 New York described the animal as a six-month-old pit bull and said video shows it tied to the garbage container outside a liquor store on Orange Road with a strand of cloth rather than a leash. That detail adds texture to an already unsettling scene for South End shopkeepers and passersby who use that stretch of the business district daily.
A Pattern Playing Out Elsewhere in New Jersey
Montclair's case echoes another unresolved abandonment investigation from earlier this year. New Jersey State Police responded to a report of an abandoned dog in Lebanon Borough, Hunterdon County, on March 24, according to NJ.com. In that case, animal control officials also responded to the scene and took custody of the dog, and investigators recovered video showing a woman walking the dog on a leash before she disappeared briefly behind a black Nissan Altima and reappeared without it.
Montclair police were seeking information about the man seen on camera in the October Orange Road dog abandonment. Anyone with information is asked to call Montclair police at 973-744-1234 and ask for the Detective Bureau.
