From staff reports
The Pennsylvania Game Commission said Friday that a November incident in which an immobile white-tailed deer was held down and repeatedly kicked as a smartphone video camera documented the incident has been resolved in court.
Two people were charged in the Nov. 30 incident, including a 17-year-old boy from Brookville whose case was resolved Thursday in Jefferson County juvenile court.
Juvenile court records aren’t available for public view.
In exchange for his guilty pleas, Smith agreed to serve two years of probation with his community service to be completed at an animal shelter and through presentations made to hunter-education classes and sportsmen’s clubs.
He will be required to pay $1,650 in fines and his hunting license will be revoked for 15 years.
The rest of the charges Smith faced were dropped as part of the plea agreement.
The Game Commission said that videos Smith recorded of the incident and then shared through Snapchat were seen by thousands of people worldwide, leading to significant public outrage over the incident.
Game Commission Executive Director Bryan Burhans praised the law-enforcement work that led to the charges and stressed that the “deplorable” actions depicted in the video in no way are representative of the hunting community.
“From the start, some of the loudest voices calling for justice in this case were those of hunters, who care deeply about wildlife and have always stepped up to protect it,” Burhans said. “That mindset, passed down through the generations, might be the biggest reason we enjoy healthy and sustainable wildlife populations today,” he added.