Some people use their work breaks to make a phone call or smoke a cigarette. Not Shea Johnson.
When Johnson, 22, a driver for Fox Rent-A-Car near near L.A./Ontario International Aiport in southern California, had a few minutes between jobs, he spent them capturing wild rabbits and killing them by hitting them with his fists or slamming them against the back wall at his work, according to the San Bernadino Sun.
Johnson, of Victorville, Calif., was sentenced on Monday to three years probation for killing as many as 20 wild rabbits.
He was arrested last May after one of his coworkers secretly made a video recording of the alleged abuse and turned it over it to police, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Johnson pled not guilty to the charges, but a portion of the graphic video that is posted on YouTube shows him tossing rabbits like softballs over a fence, putting them into a net and slamming them against a wall.
"He throws them up against the wall, he punches them, just killing them in various ways," said Deputy District Attorney Deborah Ploghaus to InsideSoCal.com when Johnson was charged with five counts of animal cruelty last July.
Officers found about a dozen rabbit carcasses behind a back fence when they initially searched the the rental agency where Johnson worked. Ontario police Sgt. David McBride interviewed Johnson about the animal carcasses and said that the suspect refuted any involvement.
"He initially denied any of the acts, and eventually partially admitted to some of it," McBride told InsideSoCal.com.
Although one of Johnson's fellow employees at Fox Rent-A-Car ratted him out as a rabbit killer to the police, animal rights groups picketed the place this past summer, according to the San Bernardino Sun, because the business continued to employ him after Johnson was released on $50,000 bail.