A man is facing an animal cruelty charge after police in East Goshen Township received video showing him kicking a dog at the Goshen Valley Apartments. The footage, recorded by a neighbor who said she had watched the man mistreat the animal before, quickly made its way to police and a local animal rights group within hours of the incident.
The video was recorded by Alexx Travaglini, who told 6abc she heard yelling outside her window and started filming as soon as she saw the man walking his dog. She said she had her camera ready because she had seen him act aggressively toward the dog in the past. In her account of what the video captured, she described the dog cowering and trying to pull away before the man struck it while it was down: “the dog cowers on the ground and gets really low to the ground and kind of like pulls away from him on the leash, and then he kicks the dog while it's down.”
Video Spreads Fast, Police Respond Within Hours
The clip did not stay contained to one apartment complex for long. Tiffany Stair, co-founder of Revolution Philadelphia, a nonprofit animal rights organization, said her group received the footage from roughly a dozen different people the night it happened. “We were sent this video probably by a dozen people last night,” Stair said, according to the outlet's report. She said the dog's reaction to the man made its fear unmistakable, adding that it was very obvious by the dog's body language that he was afraid of this person.
Revolution Philadelphia describes itself as an independent, grassroots, women-founded and all-volunteer animal-rights organization. Its work includes education, outreach and policy advocacy, with campaigns ranging from local initiatives to efforts to strengthen protections for dogs and cats in Philadelphia. Stair’s push to bring the video to police fits within that broader advocacy role, though the group’s website describes advocacy work rather than law-enforcement authority. The organization’s mission and projects include those activities.
Stair worked to get police involved after seeing the video herself, and the response from Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police was swift. Within hours, the department posted on Facebook that the incident was under investigation, according to the same account. That public acknowledgment came as the video continued to circulate among neighbors and animal welfare advocates in the area.
Summary Offense Carries Fines, Possible Jail Time
Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police said the man is being charged with animal cruelty, which the department classified as a summary offense. Per the report, that summary offense carries the possibility of fines and jail time. Police also said they are not able to release the man's identity at this stage.
Pennsylvania law defines animal cruelty to include intentionally, knowingly or recklessly illtreating, beating or abusing an animal. A violation is generally a summary offense, but it becomes a second-degree misdemeanor if it causes bodily injury or puts the animal at imminent risk of serious bodily injury. A summary conviction under the cruelty subchapter can carry a $50-to-$750 fine, up to 90 days in jail, or both. Police have classified this charge as a summary offense; the public account does not describe an injury or allege the higher statutory threshold. Pennsylvania’s cruelty statute and summary-offense penalties set out those distinctions.
No court records, case number, hearing date or plea have been made available, and the man's name remains unknown to the public. What is documented is the chain of events that followed one neighbor's decision to start recording: a video shared widely enough to reach both an animal rights organization and local police within the same night, and a criminal charge filed soon after.
