(Updated to include comment from Johnson posted on Facebook. It now includes a comment from Johnson’s wife.)
A Republican candidate for the Kansas House in Cloud County is facing potential felony charges for cruelty to animals, accused of shooting a couple’s dogs to death last year.
Gerald W. Johnson, who is running in the Republican primary for House District 107, has already been charged with two misdemeanor counts of cruelty to animals in connection with the shooting of two German shorthaired pointers.
Johnson is running against Republican state Rep. Susan Concannon, who is seeking a sixth term in the House.
Johnson is campaigning as a conservative who supports banning abortion and protecting Kansans from the “woke agenda.”
He promotes himself as “pro life, pro constitutional liberties, pro family values, pro farmer and agri business” and supports “health freedom.”
“The State of a Kansas believes that a felony charge is more appropriate in this case, as it involved the killing of an animal,” the motion says.
A hearing on the motion is set for Aug. 12 in Cloud County.
The two dogs — Maverick and Gunner — were not quite a year old.
They were owned by Madison Sibley and Phillip Tobald, who identified Johnson as the man accused of shooting their dogs in June 2021.
Tobald further confirmed that the man accused in the shooting is a House candidate.
Efforts to reach Johnson for an interview about the case on Thursday and early Friday were unsuccessful.
In an exchange on Facebook, Johnson’s wife, Amanda, said she didn’t understand why the case has dragged on for more than a year with no resolution.
She also wondered why there was an effort to elevate the charges after her husband decided to run for the House.
She declined to comment further without discussing the issue with their attorney.
In an interview, Tobald said he had taken the dogs outside while he talked to someone about buying a bull when all of a sudden he heard two gunshots.
Tobald said he spent a couple hours looking for the dogs before he went over to Johnson’s house about a quarter mile away to ask if he had seen the dogs.
Tobald said Johnson pointed him back toward his own house.
Tobald said he searched for the two dogs until 2 or 3 the next morning, left the house door open and the pups didn’t return.
Tobald said Johnson called him at about 6 a.m. and acknowledged shooting the dogs. Johnson didn’t offer an explanation, he said.
Tobald said authorities had to use a drone to find the dogs, which were about 100 yards from Johnson’s house headed home.
Johnson, Tobald said, asked how much it would cost to replace the dogs.
“I said, ‘You’re not going to be able to replace them, they’re irreplaceable. You just killed my kids,'” Tobald said. “I don’t have kids. Those are my kids.”
