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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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Reporter Arrested for|Pooping on a Poodle Story

PHOENIX (CN) — While investigating a story about a poodle sacrifice, a reporter for a Phoenix news station was arrested and charged with defecating in a homeowner's front yard.

Jonathan Lowe is no longer employed by KPHO news, the CBS affiliate said.

According to the police report, a woman called Goodyear police on May 16 and told them she saw a man squat against the wall of the house across the street and "defecate in the yard of the residence." The arresting officer wrote that the woman "stated that she immediately recognized the reporter as Jonathan Lowe from TV news."

Goodyear is a western suburb of Phoenix.

The woman told the arresting officer "that if Jonathan had knocked on their door, she would've let him use their bathroom."

Lowe apparently had been staked out in a news van for 40 minutes, working on the poodle sacrifice.

When the officer contacted Lowe, back in the news van, he said: "I know what you want to talk to me about. I've been feeling very sick and I've been stuck in this van all day. So, I went over to that person's yard and took care of business. These people who called on me just wanted to start problems."

The officer said he recorded the interview on his city-issued digital recorder. The officer told him he could have gone to a supermarket less than a mile away and used its restroom, but Lowe told him "that he couldn't leave the area."

So the cop arrested him and charged him public urination or defecation, a misdemeanor punishable by a $2,500 fine or six months in jail.

Lowe was covering a story about a former Arizona State University football player who sacrificed his family's poodle in a smoker.

Patrick Thompson, 42, was arrested on two felony and two misdemeanor counts after he broke his poodle's neck. According to a police report, Thompson told his family the Bible called for him to make a male sacrifice, which is why he had to kill the dog.

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