Authorities in Southern California are looking for a woman who was filmed allegedly tossing a bag of newborn puppies beside a dumpster in the city of Coachella before driving away.
Surveillance video taken just after 1 p.m. Thursday captures the woman driving up to a row of dumpsters behind a Napa Auto Parts parking lot in a white Jeep Wrangler. After inspecting the contents of one dumpster, she tosses the plastic bag on the ground beside a second dumpster before turning and getting back into her vehicle, by the Riverside County Department of Animal Services shows.
She appears to be wearing a high ponytail, dark sunglasses, a tank top, sneakers and a short skirt while committing the act.
Authorities credited a passerby named John who was rummaging through the trash with discovering the puppies roughly an hour after the woman took off. All seven of them are believed to be terrier mixes and about three days old.
“If not for the Good Samaritan’s actions, the puppies may not have survived much longer. The mid-day temperatures in Coachella on Thursday were in the mid-90s range,” the animal services department .
Animal Services Commander Chris Mayer lauded the man as a hero.
“His actions were humane and heroic,” he said in a release that also blasted the woman’s actions as “shameful.”
“There is no excuse for dumping puppies,” Mayer said. “Especially in today’s age when we or other shelters would be willing to get these animals to foster parents or rescue partners. This was a shameful act.”
The pups have been placed in foster care and are expected to be all right, the county said.
The incident came amid the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which draws a flood of music fans from around the world. Its last day was on Sunday.
