Pittsfield Woman Charged With Animal Abuse (Video)

On Sunday, June 9, 2019 at approximately 9:30 AM, Pittsfield Police responded to the report of animal cruelty, which had occurred in the Common Park a short time earlier.

As a result of witness accounts and video evidence, Melinda Alston, 44, of Pittsfield was summonsed for 1 count of Cruelty to Animals.

During subsequent interactions with Ms. Alston, the canine animal in question was observed and remains in apparent good health.

Live 95.9 spoke with the individual, who wishes to remain anonymous, who captured the incident by video. That individual has released a statement:

I had just finished working out at the common and was sitting in the grass beneath the beer fest tent stretching when I heard someone screaming at what I thought was a child, telling them to “f****** walk” and to “hurry up”. When I looked up, there was a lady screaming at her tiny white dog. She picked it up by neck and threw it in front of her.

The poor pooch rolled and the woman continued to scream at it to move, kicking the poor creature. As the dog struggled to get its feet underneath itself, I reacted and without thinking yelled, “hey!!”.  The woman spun around and yelled “what?!” In a disgusted manner. I shouted back, “knock it off!”.

That was when she grabbed the dog by the neck again and came barreling toward me.  I was still sitting in the grass when she threw the dog at me, stood over me and began screaming in my face to “mind my own f****** business” and other obscenities.  I leaned back and put my foot against her groin area to try keep her away.

I had taken my phone out to start recording her when she tried to slap it away from me saying “go ahead, call the police, see what I do to you” then tried to swing as me. I screamed for help twice but no one nearby intervened. All while her poor dog cowered behind me.

I pushed her away by the groin with my foot and got to my feet, which was when I finally started recorded. The rest of the altercation is on the video. At the very end, you can see a lady coming out the building. That lady knew her and asked her what happened, to which she replied “that c*nt attacked me and kicked me”.

It was then that I left the park and immediately went to the police station, explained everything that happened and gave them the video.  I also called the mspca the next day and shared the video with many animal lovers, some of which posted the video online. I am choosing to stay anonymous out of fear; you never know what people are capable of these days.