By Rocco Parascandola
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — Cops were in the right place at the right time when they saved a batch of pit bull puppies from suffocating in a bag after spotting a woman trying to sell them in Queens, NYPD body cam video shows.
The puppies were crying and in various stages of distress as officers gave them water, with one cop cupping his hand to form a makeshift bowl, the video shows.
Officers on a footpost spotted the woman pulling a pink plastic bag on a rolling cart on Beach Channel Drive near Hassock St. in Far Rockaway about 6:55 p.m. Saturday, officials said. She was trying to sell the puppies to a passerby.
“I am selling them,” Shirley Medina, 44, said, according to court papers. “There are six. The rest are in the bag. There are small holes for them to breathe through.”
But that wasn’t the case, police said.
The puppy she was holding was fine but the bag had no holes in it and when one cop used a knife to cut it open the other puppies were discovered.
“So hot, oh my God,” one officer can be heard saying in the video the NYPD posted Monday on X. “They’re so hot. She was trying to sell the puppies. They were all tied up in the bag. They’re dripping in sweat.”
One of the puppies, according to court papers, had a cut over its eye.
“You’re grabbing me like I’m going to run.” Medina could be heard as she was being arrested. “I’m not going to run.”
The dogs were taken to the ASPCA for treatment and evaluation.
Medina was charged with five counts each of torturing an animal and neglecting an animal. A sixth puppy, the one she was holding in her arms, was not in any apparent danger.
Medina was also charged with criminal possession of a weapon for brass knuckles found in the pocket of the pink plastic bag in which the puppies nearly died, police said.
Medina, who lives nearby where she was arrested, was released without bail after being arraigned in Queens Criminal Court.
She has two prior arrests, police said, one for robbery and one for petty larceny.
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