I’ve been looking into recent animal cruelty cases in Washington, and the more I read, the more insane the sentencing starts to look.
Take Devon Detweiler (Burien). He pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree animal cruelty for killing Moose, Lucky and an unnamed tabby. He admitted killing four kittens and described throwing kittens into walls, and that he was working up to killing a person. He was sentenced to 12 months on each of the three counts.
That sounds like three years — it wasn’t.
The sentences were ordered to run concurrently, meaning all three 12-month sentences ran at the same time. He was released April 17, 2026, after roughly 7.5 months in custody.
That isn’t some odd technicality unique to his case. Under Washington’s felony sentencing law, multiple current felony sentences generally run concurrently unless one of the specific exceptions in RCW 9.94A.589 applies. First-degree animal cruelty isn’t one of the offenses automatically requiring consecutive sentences.
So, practically speaking, you can torture and kill multiple animals and the additional felony sentences can overlap instead of actually adding much time. What makes this even stranger is that Washington already does the opposite for lesser animal cruelty crimes. RCW 16.52.200 specifically says that when someone has multiple misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor animal cruelty convictions, those sentences shall be consecutive. There is no equivalent rule requiring consecutive sentences for multiple first-degree animal cruelty felonies.
Then there’s Dejean Bowens, the Ballard kennel employee who brutally kicked and punched Mitch, a black Lab, until he died. Bowens pleaded guilty to first-degree animal cruelty earlier this year. Because he had no prior convictions, Washington’s sentencing grid gave him a range of just one to three months. Prosecutors asked for the maximum. The judge gave him three months, with credit applicable for electronic home detention. The King County Prosecutor’s Office was pretty explicit that neither prosecutors nor the judge could simply decide to give him substantially more time because the sentencing range was set by state law.
Three months for beating a dog to death.
And this isn’t new. In 2023, Elmer Givens Jr. pleaded guilty to nine counts of first-degree animal cruelty and one count of second-degree cruelty after authorities seized 107 dogs from his Pierce County property during a years-long investigation involving allegations of dog fighting and abuse. His sentence: 10 months in jail.
Then there is Antoine Runner/Antoine Tyrant, whose case involved cats from Seattle’s Georgetown area. He was ultimately sentenced in October 2025 to the maximum 364 days on the misdemeanor animal-cruelty charge. But he had already spent 172 days in custody by sentencing, which counted toward that sentence. He was later released after roughly eight months total in custody, not a full year after sentencing.
Washington has made some improvements. In 2024, HB 1961 finally placed all forms of first-degree animal cruelty at Seriousness Level III on the felony sentencing grid instead of leaving much of the crime unranked. That was a real improvement.
But these recent cases show that it did not go nearly far enough.
What needs to change:
– Multiple animals should mean multiple punishments. If someone intentionally tortures or kills three animals in three separate acts, the Legislature should create an exception to RCW 9.94A.589 requiring those first-degree animal cruelty sentences to run consecutively, or at least requiring substantial consecutive portions. Killing three animals should not result in essentially the same confinement as killing one.
– First-degree animal cruelty needs a higher seriousness level. It is currently only Level III. That is why a first-time offender like Bowens could have a standard range of only one to three months after beating a dog to death. The Legislature can amend RCW 9.94A.515 and move intentional first-degree cruelty higher on the sentencing grid.
The law should also distinguish especially aggravated cruelty: prolonged torture, repeated acts, killing multiple animals, deliberately obtaining animals for the purpose of abusing them, filming the torture, or other conduct demonstrating extreme cruelty should allow or require a sentence above the ordinary range.
– Each animal needs to count clearly and independently. The law should make explicit that each individual animal intentionally tortured or killed constitutes a separate unit of prosecution. The Legislature itself heard testimony in 2024 about cases involving huge numbers of abused animals being punished similarly to cases involving one animal.
– Washington should create an animal abuser registry. Washington already imposes a lifetime ban on owning, caring for, possessing or residing with animals after a first-degree animal cruelty conviction. That is good. But how is a random rescue, shelter or person giving away a kitten on Craigslist supposed to know someone has that prohibition?
A searchable animal abuse offender registry could give shelters, rescues, breeders and people rehoming animals a practical way to screen people with serious cruelty convictions. Washington lawmakers actually proposed a statewide animal abuse registry in SB 5804 back in 2017, including identifying information and cruelty convictions, but the bill never made it out of the legislative process.
I’m not arguing that every neglect case should result in years in prison. There is obviously a difference between negligence, hoarding situations, failure to obtain veterinary care and somebody deliberately torturing an animal to death.
But when somebody intentionally tortures and kills animals, particularly repeatedly, our sentencing laws should reflect the seriousness of what they actually did.
Three months for beating a dog to death and 7.5 months for killing three kittens to death is not an adequate response.
This isn’t primarily a problem that individual judges can fix. The Washington Legislature needs to change the sentencing laws.
submitted by /u/seattleanimalwelfare
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