Justice for Joby: “I’m Pro-Gun, Anti-Idiot”

MONROE, N.C. – Susanne Wright was at her kitchen window around dinner time July 4th when she saw her horse Joby react to what she thought may have been a bee sting. She realized quickly it was more serious. Wright tells WCCB News @ Ten anchor Morgan Fogarty, “I ran out the door. I came out, he was sweating profusely and shaking.” She says, “I saw blood and then I saw the hole.” “He was in so much pain,” she says. “I felt helpless. Because he was suffering. and there was nothing I could do,” says Wright.

Joby, the 23-year-old Quarter horse, bled out and within 30 minutes, died in front of Susanne’s eyes. The bullet was fired from a neighbor’s makeshift firing range on the other side of a line of trees that are about 200 yards across the flat horse pasture. You’ll notice there’s no visible backstop or berm. It’s close to other homes. It’s close to kids baseball fields.

Wright says, “I was in that same area no more than 30 minutes before it happened, so it, it could have been me.” She continues, “I am very pro-second amendment. It’s the negligence part that I don’t like. I’m very pro-gun. I’m anti-idiot.”

Wright has reported the neighbor before for shooting near her horses. Fogarty asked the Union County Sheriff’s Office what can be done this time.

The short answer? Public information officer Tony Underwood stressed, the investigation is ongoing, but so far: nothing. “If you’re talking about a careless, reckless disregard, especially involving a firearm and it’s out in the county, it’s in a rural environment, there’s really no ordinance to prohibit that.”

No. Ordinance. No ordinance to protect Wright’s reasonable expectation that her animals – that she – doesn’t get gunned down on their own property. “There’s gotta be something. They just have to dig a little bit more,” says Wright. She says, “I’m gonna get justice for Joby. I will have it.”

The investigation report lists the guns the neighbor and his friends fired the day Joby was shot: a Mossberg 500, a Remington 870, a Winchester 30-30, a 44 Marlin and an AR-15. It’s still unclear which weapon fired the bullet that killed Joby because the bullet fragmented inside the horse’s body and couldn’t be retrieved.

Wright has started a Facebook page called Justice for Joby.