Amish Teen Charged With Animal Abuse After Horse-and-Buggy Chase

Last week, a teenager was arrested after running a stop sign and leading police on a chase — in a horse and buggy. Among the charges filed against Levi Detweiler, an Amish 17 year old, are underage possession of alcohol, reckless endangerment, failure to stop at a stop sign, failure to yield to an emergency vehicle … and overdriving an animal.

I’d never heard of that last one, so I looked it up on Findlaw. Along with overdriving an animal, New York Code - Section 353 covers a multitude of abuses including overloading, neglecting, torturing, cruelly beating, unjustifiably injuring, maiming, mutilating or killing either wild or tame animals. Quite a disturbing list, right? But the code is a misdemeanor, so the punishment for doing any of these terrible things is likely to be paying a modest fine, performing some community service or, at most, spending a couple of days in jail — in other words, a slap on the wrist.

But at least the horse’s welfare was considered.

Sheriff’s deputies in Cattaraugus County, in western New York, said Detweiler ignored a stop sign in the early morning hours of July 12. UPI reports that when the deputies ordered him to stop his buggy, he refused, and the chase was on. The deputies pursued Detweiler for about a mile until the teen made too sharp a turn and the buggy overturned in a ditch. Detweiler ran away but was later found. According to CBS News, two Amish men helped the deputies free the horse. There are no reports as to whether the horse was injured in the crash.

Just four days before Detweiler’s arrest, in Leon, the very same small town, the Buffalo News reported that four 18-year-old Amish men were arrested for underage drinking and littering — they were tossing empty beer cans from their buggy when cops pulled them over. Last December in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a young Amish man was arrested for DUI when he fell asleep at the reins of his buggy, while his horse continued down the middle of the road.

Perhaps all of these young buggy drivers were in the merry midst of Rumspringa ("running around"), which according to myth is an Amish rite of passage in which youths 16 and older are encouraged to experience the "English" world — to wear modern clothes, not attend home prayer — and experiment with alcohol and drugs. After that they must decide whether to be baptized in the Amish church or to leave the community.

But whatever the reason for their drinking and buggy driving, no animal endangerment charges were filed against the men in the earlier cases. If they had been driving cars while intoxicated, the cars would likely be impounded; apparently the same precautions are not taken for the horses drawing buggies.

Regardless of whether the purpose is personal lifestyle or commercial, or whether the driver is sober or inebriated, horses drawing carriages or buggies on public roads face many dangers. A PETA fact sheet (pdf) includes 12 full pages of horse-drawn carriage incidents that have occurred in the United States since 1985.

Fortunately, steps are being taken to better protect horses, at least those used by the commercial carriage horse industry. Earlier this year, New York Gov. David Paterson said the horses that take tourists for buggy rides around Central Park either need to be treated better or otherwise horse-drawn carriages should be banned. Last year, Manhattan City Councilman Daniel Garodnick proposed replacing the horses with another romantic mode of transportation: eco-friendly Model T Ford replicas.

But what about horses used for personal transportation? I think a first step in the right direction would be to automatically add an animal endangerment charge to any driver found to be under the influence. And make that charge a felony, not a mamby-pamby misdemeanor.

Photo credit: cloudsoup