Trump regime promotes dog shooter Noem,  fires FBI agent who shot pit bull

Shooting dog,  goat,  & three horses apparently qualifies Kristi Noem to direct deportations

WASHINGTON D.C.––The de facto Donald Trump administration position on the ethics and morality of shooting dogs appears to be that a high-ranking,  multi-time decorated FBI agent who shot a pit bull in self-defense is unfit for duty,  but a Trump loyalist who shot a dog and a goat in an outburst of rage is fit to be Secretary of Homeland Security.

The FBI agent,  former Philadelphia field office chief Jacqueline Maguire,  “was ordered to resign by the evening of Monday,  February 3,  2025,  or be fired, according to a memo issued on Friday,  January 31,  by acting deputy U.S. attorney general Emil Bove,”  reported Chris Palmer for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Shooting the messengers

“Maguire was one of six top officials at the FBI,”  continued Palmer,  “whom Bove said would be forced out,  in addition to others at field offices across the country.  The memo did not provide specifics on why those people had been targeted, except to say that President Donald Trump wanted to end the ‘weaponization of the federal government,’  and address ‘deficiencies in previous leadership’ at the FBI.

“I do not believe that the current leadership of the Justice Department can trust these FBI employees to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully,”  Bove’s memo,  evidently oblivious to the mission statement of the FBI,  “To protect the American people and uphold the Constitution of the United States,”  saying nothing whatever about implementing any president’s political agenda.

Lead case agent investigating 9/11 attack on Pentagon

“Maguire,  who joined the FBI in 2000,  spent about two years leading Philadelphia’s field office before she returned to bureau headquarters in 2023,  where she most recently served as the FBI’s executive assistant director of the science and technology branch,”  Palmer recounted.

“Earlier in her career,”  Palmer added,  “Maguire served as a lead case agent in the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77,  which crashed into the Pentagon on September 11,  2001.

“In late 2023,  Palmer mentioned,  “Maguire was reassigned to serve at the bureau’s training division at its headquarters in Quantico, Virginia.  While there, she penned an essay defending the bureau for diversifying its ranks,  saying that ‘diversity — in its many incarnations — makes us better able to meet the challenges the bureau faces in today’s world.’”

As Palmer noted,  Trump “has repeatedly sought to end diversity,  equity,  and inclusion initiatives across government since he was sworn in last month.”

Security video documented pit bull shooting

What Maguire is best known for,  however,  was her February 20,  2023 shooting of a pit bull.

“The incident was captured on video by security cameras outside the apartment building,”  described Philadelphia Inquirer reporters Jeremy Roebuck,  Ellie Rushing,  and Beatrice Forman.

“The footage shows Maguire sitting on a bench,”  in Rittenhouse Square,  Philadelphia,  “with her own small dog in her lap as a woman walking two other dogs,”  apparently both pit bulls,  “passed by.

“One of the dogs,”  named Mia,  “suddenly dragged her owner toward Maguire,  snatched the small dog off the agent’s lap,  and began aggressively shaking the small dog,  the source said.”

Maguire’s small dog is believed to have been a two-year-old King Charles Cavalier spaniel named Tucker.

Pit bull got it where the sun doesn’t shine

“Maguire threw herself into the fracas and tried to separate the animals,”  summarized Roebuck,  Rushing,  and Forman,  “eventually drawing her weapon,  placing it directly against the pit bull’s backside,  and firing into the animal’s hindquarters,  according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.”

Mia’s owner,  identified as Maria Esser,  27,  and other pit bull advocates worldwide raised a hue-and-cry against Maguire.

Lara Trump,  daughter-in-law of Donald Trump,  has often advocated for pit bulls,  but whether she joined in the online pillorying of Maguire is unknown.

Maguire was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing.

Mia had attack history

Continuing to investigate,  Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jeremy Roebuck revealed on February 24,  2023 that “Less than a month before Jacqueline Maguire, the FBI’s top agent in Philadelphia,  shot and killed a pit bull as the pit bull reportedly attacked her smaller dog,  that pit bull seriously injured another dog,”  who required “three surgeries and $9,000 in vet bills,  according to residents of the building where the earlier incident took place.

“The January 27,  2023 fracas — between the 7-year-old pit bull named Mia and a Siberian husky mix puppy who lived in the same apartment complex — prompted management to ban the pit bull from a community dog park and require the pit bull to be muzzled in all common areas,  three neighbors said.

“The Siberian husky’s owner,  a 29-year-old who asked not to named,  said she had just come back from taking her puppy to the dog park when she encountered Mia in the building’s hallway being walked by one of Esser’s friends.

“Her pup,  she said,  sniffed at the pit bull,  who responded aggressively.”

Described a witness,  who “heard the fight from inside her apartment,  stepped outside to see what was going on,  and later drove the husky puppy and its owner to the veterinary hospital,  ‘You could see the bone in the [Siberian husky’s] leg.  There was blood everywhere.’”

Kristi Noem confirmed to head Homeland Security

The U.S. Senate meanwhile on January 25,  2025 confirmed former two-term South Dakota Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security in the Donald Trump cabinet.

“Noem will be in charge of executing one of President Trump’s biggest priorities in his second term:  cracking down on immigration,”  reported National Public Radio.

Noem,  in her 2024 campaign memoir No Going Back,  boasted of how she shot Cricket,  a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer.

“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs,  Noem says,  she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave,”  summarized Guardian breaking news editor and Washington D.C. correspondent Martin Pengelly.

But Cricket went “out of her mind with excitement,  chasing all those birds and having the time of her life,”  Noem wrote.

Shot Cricket in a gravel pit

Narrated Pengelly,  “Noem described calling Cricket,  then using an electronic collar to attempt to bring her under control.  Nothing worked.  Then,  on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family,  Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabbing one chicken at a time,  crunching it to death with one bite,  then dropping it to attack another.’”

Noem paid the family for their chickens.

Deciding that Cricket had proved herself “untrainable,”  “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,”  and “less than worthless as a hunting dog,’”  although killing birds is exactly what Noem had hoped to train Cricket to do,  Noem shot Cricket in a nearby gravel pit.

 Still infuriated,  Noem headed home.

Shot her old goat because he smelled like a goat

“Her family,”  Pengally continued,  “also owned a male goat who was ‘nasty and mean,’  because he had not been castrated.  Furthermore,  the goat smelled ‘disgusting,  musky,  rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children,  knocking them down and ruining their clothes,”  a problem that most goat-keepers solve by putting up a fence.

“Noem decided to kill the unnamed goat the same way she had just killed Cricket the dog,”  reported Pengelly.

“But though she ‘dragged him to a gravel pit,’  the goat jumped as she shot and therefore survived the wound.  Noem says she went back to her truck, retrieved another shell,  then ‘hurried back to the gravel pit and put him down.’”

When Pengelly questioned Noem’s actions,  he added,  she informed him that she also “just had to put down three horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”

Bloodlust

Noem already had a history of bloodlust unparalleled among current U.S. governors,  possibly viewed by Trump as a qualification for ruthlessly deporting alleged illegal immigrants.

Among Noem’s first actions in 2019,  as the then newly elected governor of South Dakota,  was introducing a “nest predator bounty program” with the stated goals of  “diminishing the population of animals who eat pheasant and duck eggs,  and helping to ensure trapping remains a part of South Dakota’s outdoor heritage.”

Funded with half a million dollars per year,  the bounty program from April 1 through July 1 each year targets raccoons,  coyotes,  striped skunks,  badgers,  opossums,  and red fox,  with a goal of killing 50,000 “nest predators” per year.

To collect the bounty,  participants must turn in the tails of the dead animals.

240,000 “nest predators” killed for bounties

Through 2024,  290,000 “nest predators” were killed for the bounties.

The number of pheasants shot increased from 2019 to 2024 by 771,000.

Nonetheless,  the 2023 toll of 1.6 million was still 500,000 below the number of pheasants shot in 2007,  when no bounties were in effect,  but weather conditions and farm cropping choices were more conducive to pheasant abundance.

(For a detailed analysis of the failure of the bounty program,  which is to continue at least through 2026,  see South Dakota predator bounty program to continue despite opposition,  by Bart Pfankuch and Abbey Stegenga of South Dakota News Watch.)

Deportations will leave pets homeless

“If millions of people are deported,  many of whom have homes and households,  the animals who have joined their families are going to be left behind,”  predicts SpayFirst! founder Ruth Steinberger,  who has done extensive spay/neuter work in South Dakota.

“Border agencies are not flying pets out,”  Steinberger told ANIMALS 24-7.

But many abandoned animals may be shot after becoming a nuisance or even threat to the safety of neighbors.

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