A teenage boy accused of killing a family’s pet chicken and duck in Portage Park has been charged with animal cruelty.
The 15-year-old boy was arrested Tuesday on two felony counts of aggravated animal cruelty and one count of misdemeanor criminal trespassing related to the May 22 incident, Chicago police said in a statement.
Police said the boy allegedly entered a backyard on the 5200 block of West Newport Avenue that afternoon and intentionally killed two pet birds. Authorities did not release his name because he has been charged as a juvenile.
The birds — a chicken named Peep and a duck named Henry — were owned by Jacob Pabello and his family.
That day, Pabello was sleeping when someone banged on his side door and woke him up, he told the Sun-Times last month.
He looked out the window and saw Peep and Henry dead on the ground, Pabello said. The birds’ innards were smeared on the windshield of his car, he said.
“At first, I was very angry. But then I got hit with a wave of sadness because I was very confused,” Pabello said. “How could someone just do that?”
No one witnessed the attack but a security camera on his neighbor’s home allegedly showed the attacker, now identified as the teen boy, slamming Henry to the ground before using a large rock to kill the bird.
Peep and Henry lived among about six or seven chickens that Pabello and his parents own at their Portage Park home.
Another chicken was injured in the attack, suffering a bloody beak but was otherwise all right, Pabello said.
Contributing: Mohammad Samra