It has often been said that we don't deserve dogs, primarily because dogs are too good for us deeply flawed humans. They will go to the mat for us, are loyal to the core, put no conditions on their love for us, are always there to listen to us, and don't judge us despite our many faults.
It's also been said that there's a special place in hell for those who mistreat and abuse animals, which brings us to this next story, which, while heartbreaking, needs to be told in hopes that the 9-month-old puppy whose life was cut short in a senseless act of animal cruelty will never be forgotten.
I first heard of this story from Fox News congressional correspondent Bill Melugin, an animal lover who brought the stories of the many sweet dogs he encountered during his reporting of the Biden border crisis to televisions across America. On Wednesday, Melugin posted a screengrab from an incident that had been caught on tape from a home surveillance camera, and described the horrific details behind what happened:
I’ve never been so infuriated after watching a video. I will post only a screenshot because of how upsetting it is.
Police in Santa Ana, CA need help tracking down a demonic woman who was caught on video purposely running over a puppy & killing it. She poured dog food on the ground to bait the puppy to get in the wheels path, then she ran it over and sat the wheel and the weight of the car on the puppy for over 10 seconds, an agonizing death.
Santa Ana PD says it happened on September 8th near 900 W. Park Lane in Santa Ana and cameras unfortunately didn’t catch a license plate.
Someone will know something. Internet, do your thing.
I’ve never been so infuriated after watching a video. I will post only a screenshot because of how upsetting it is.
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) September 30, 2026
Police in Santa Ana, CA need help tracking down a demonic woman who was caught on video purposely running over a puppy & killing it. She poured dog food on the… pic.twitter.com/OO6kN7XV8c
The video was shared by the Santa Ana Police Department (SAPD) on their social media pages, where they urged anyone with information to come forward so they could hopefully find the twisted person who had been driving the car and had run over the puppy. In their post, the SAPD wrote that "A nearby resident reported seeing a minivan parked near the location and believed the female driver intentionally ran over the puppy."
They also revealed that, "Over the course of several weeks, Animal Services and officers canvassed the area for surveillance video. They located video that corroborated the reporting party’s statement of the incident."
In an update to this story, the police department announced on Thursday that they had made an arrest in the case, thanked the public for their help, and said that the alleged perp admitted to the crime:
Hahn Nguyen, 75, was booked into Santa Ana jail on suspicion of animal cruelty and animal abandonment. She admitted to owning the 9-month-old pit bull, “Blackey,” and that she abandoned him, police said.
She told detectives she left the puppy at a park because it had been annoying her boyfriend by biting on his shoes and belongings, according to department spokesperson Natalie Garcia. Nguyen had told her boyfriend she thought the dog was run over but did not admit to running over the animal herself, Garcia said.
[...]
Officers were subsequently able to use automated license plate readers to identify the minivan and two addresses, one in Anaheim and another in Fountain Valley, that were associated with it, Garcia said. They knocked on the door of the Anaheim residence Thursday morning and found Nguyen inside and the vehicle parked in the garage.
BREAKING UPDATE: Santa Ana PD says they’ve arrested the suspect caught on camera purposely running over a puppy after baiting it with dog food, killing it. Her name is Hahn Nguyen, and PD says they caught her after getting a hit on an automatic license plate reader. https://t.co/zTWwnv95CI pic.twitter.com/IImBMt3Fui
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 1, 2026
According to the Los Angeles Times, animal cruelty is an offense that can either be charged "as a misdemeanor or felony":
A case is being presented to the Orange County district attorney’s office for filing consideration, Garcia said.
Felony animal cruelty is punishable by up to three years in county jail and up to $20,000 in fines.
Though we don't have any pictures of Blackey, we can assume he was a black dog based on his name. And while Blackey has now crossed over the Rainbow Bridge, it seems fitting that an arrest was made in his case on October 1, which is National Black Dog Day.
Rest in peace, sweet Blackey. Gone but not forgotten.
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