A New York City dog owner was left heartbroken after an immigrant man he considered a friend threw his two-year-old pit bull off a 14-story balcony.
Luis Gabriel Santamaria, 27, told the New York Post he returned to his Brooklyn apartment from a Halloween party on November 1 to find his beloved dog, Kith, dead on the sidewalk.
He said he had previously gotten into an argument with his friend, Alberto Morris, 33, and in retaliation, Morris broke into his apartment on Montgomery Street in Crown Heights around 5 a.m. and threw his pit bull off the balcony, killing the dog .
“I had him since he was a baby, since he was a month old,” Santamaria said of Kith. “He was literally my best friend.
“I never thought he would do what he did: kill my dog for no reason,” he said of his former friend, although he noted that he had realized Morris was exhibiting aggressive and obsessive behavior.
Santamaria explained that he met Morris just a few weeks before Kith’s untimely death, and the two became fast friends as they bonded over their shared Panamanian heritage.
But Morris soon became obsessed with Santamaria, he claimed, sending him strange text messages, randomly showing up at his apartment and ringing the doorbell repeatedly.
Alberto Morris, 33, was arrested Monday and charged with aggravated animal cruelty, grand larceny, criminal mischief and torturing an animal
Luis Gabriel Santamaria, 27, said Morris threw his beloved pit bull, Kith, off a 14th-floor balcony after a fight at a Halloween party on Nov. 1
Then, just hours before Morris was scheduled to kill Kith, he became drunk and aggressive at the Halloween party.
“That scared me,” Santamaria told the Post, noting that he even warned his friends that Morris was trying to fight him.
“At one point, when he got too aggressive, he grabbed my bag – I had a small side bag – and ripped it off my body,” he said.
From then on, the two friends started pushing each other – and without Santamaria noticing, Morris stole the keys from the bag when security at the party told Morris to leave.
When he later realized Morris had taken the keys to his apartment, Santamaria said he ordered an Uber home and frantically called his other friends to run to his house and make sure Morris didn’t break in.
But Morris got there first, he said, and threw Kith off the balcony before fleeing the scene.
He allegedly tried to rip a Ring camera off a wall as he fled.
By the time Santamaria arrived at the apartment, he found Kith dead on the sidewalk and his friend who had given him the dog as a puppy crying outside.
Santamaria said he raised Kith with a one-month-old puppy
When Santamaria returned to his Crown Heights apartment, he saw Kith lying dead on the sidewalk, he said
Morris was ultimately arrested in connection with Kith’s death on Monday and charged with aggravated animal cruelty, grand theft, criminal mischief and torturing an animal, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
But the charges are all ineligible for bail, meaning he cannot be held behind bars unless convicted, and because Morris had not previously been arrested, he was released after an arraignment.
Still on the streets, Santamaria says he doesn’t feel safe.
“I still walk these streets and turn my head because I don’t know what this man can do,” he said. “I haven’t known him long enough to know that could happen.”
He said his family is still in shock over Kith’s gruesome murder, and that he is “really curious as to why he is a free man after he did what he did.”
“I don’t think any murderer should be left anywhere outside of prison,” Santamaria said as he continued to mourn his fallen friend.
Santamaria said he will seek justice in Kith’s murder
“Honestly, my life will never be the same… it sickens me and breaks my heart that I actually have to say goodbye to my true best friend,” he wrote on Instagram on November 3.
“Words really can’t express how much I feel right now,” he continued.
‘The whole world knows how much you meant to me in my life! The whole world loved you! Everyone who ever met you or ran into you immediately fell in love because you were such a sweet dog, all you ever wanted to do was play, play, play all day man! There was no place I would go that you wouldn’t follow.”
‘Since the day I met you, I have protected you, defended you, cared for you as if you were my own human son! To me, no one could ever say you weren’t human, or my son. They knew better, even my mother.’
He also said that Kith’s death left his bed “so cold” and his house “so quiet.”
“It’s so damn hard to wake up and not see you, not feel like you’re jumping on me and tell me ‘good morning,’ and not take you to the park.”
Santamaria went on to say that the image of Kith lying dead on the ground “will be burned into my brain and heart for the rest of my life.”
‘I miss you so much, I love you so much. I really can’t bear this pain,” he wrote.
“I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and to make this post about something else, but I and your family will do everything we can to get JUSTICE FOR YOU DADDY!”