New York carriage driver acquitted of overworking horse that collapsed

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New York carriage driver acquitted of overworking horse that collapsed

2025-07-22 05:35 Last Updated At：05:51

NEW YORK (AP) — A horse carriage driver was acquitted Monday of animal cruelty in a modern trial about the old-fashioned coaches that meander through New York's Central Park.

A six-person jury found Ian McKeever not guilty of overworking a horse called Ryder, who collapsed en route back to his stable on an 84-degree Fahrenheit (29-degree Celsius) day in August 2022. The horse lay on an avenue near Times Square for nearly an hour as concerned bystanders gathered around and police cooled him with a hose and ice. The animal ultimately got up, to cheers.

McKeever had pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge. His attorney, Raymond Loving, said the horse wasn't overtaxed and simply tripped while changing lanes on a Manhattan street.

“The verdict was very gratifying. This has been an ordeal for him,” Loving said by phone, adding that “the evidence just didn’t support the charge.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement that prosecutors presented “a thorough case based on the facts and evidence.”

Featured in countless movies and TV shows, New York's horse carriages are popular with visitors and people celebrating special occasions. But animal rights advocates have long tried to get the coaches banned, and the issue became a prominent, celebrity-studded local political debate for a time about a decade ago.

Anti-coach activists question the horses' treatment and contend that Manhattan streets are no place for equines, pointing to some collisions and collapses over the years. Enthusiasts say the carriages are a time-honored tourist draw that employs several hundred drivers and creates a role for surplus farm and race horses that might otherwise be slaughtered.

McKeever, an Irish immigrant, has been a carriage driver for decades. His brother owned Ryder.

A horse-carriage-industry veterinarian, Dr. Camilo Sierra, told jurors he estimated Ryder's age at 28 to 30, eventually settling on 26 — the maximum age at which carriage-pullers can legally work. Police Sgt. Vincent Fontana testified that McKeever told him the horse was 13.

Ryder was outside for over seven hours on Aug. 10, 2022, mostly in Central Park, taking passengers on two trips over the course of the day.

Passerby Caroline Londahl-Smidt testified that she worried after noticing his prominent ribs and seeing him seem to struggle up a hill, with McKeever shaking the reins in an apparent effort to hurry the horse along.

Prosecutor Sophie Robart argued that McKeever “pushed Ryder beyond his limits” until the horse's body gave out.

After Ryder left the park and collapsed, bystander video published by the New York Post showed McKeever snapping the reins at him and telling him to get up.

McKeever's lawyer maintained that Ryder wasn't overheated or mistreated, and that the driver acted responsibly. McKeever, 56, testified that he strove to get the animal to stand because prolonged reclining can cause health problems for equines.

Ryder’s temperature was normal and his breathing rate was slightly elevated when Fontana measured it, after the horse had been hosed down for some time. Later that evening at the stable, Sierra found Ryder alert, with normal vital signs, but he noted the underweight horse walked weakly. The veterinarian said he believed the animal had a neurological problem.

Two months after the collapse, an ailing Ryder was euthanized. A necropsy showed he had bone cancer.

Carriage drivers' union shop steward Christina Hansen said Monday that the union has since taken steps, including improving access to a horse hospital. Drivers "enter this line of work because we love animals,” she said.

Animal rights activists, meanwhile, continued to inveigh against the industry. Edita Birnkrant, who runs an anti-horse-carriage group called NYCLASS, called the verdict “heartbreaking" and renewed a call for the city to stop issuing new carriage driver licenses.

Another Manhattan carriage driver was charged with animal cruelty in 2013 after authorities said he kept a horse working for days with an injured hoof. That driver pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a noncriminal violation, and was sentenced to community service, according to news reports. Court records of his case are sealed.

Minnesota prosecutor calls on the public to share Renee Good shooting evidence with her office

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota prosecutor on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to local investigators, challenging the Trump administration's decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday's killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.

She also said the officer who shot Good in the head does not have complete legal immunity, as Vice President JD Vance declared.

“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” Moriarty said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”

Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn't sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.

The prosecutor's announcement came on a third day of Minneapolis protests over Good's killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.

Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”

"On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns," Becca Good said.

“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”

The reaction to the Good's shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution and offering an online option through Feb. 12.

On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets." And on Friday, protesters were outside a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility, and a small group of counter-demonstrators also showed up.

City workers, meanwhile, removed makeshift barricades made of Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good's shooting. Officials said they would leave up a shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.

The Portland shootings happened outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. Federal immigration officers shot and wounded a man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who were inside a vehicle, and their conditions weren't immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to get out of a street to allow traffic to flow.

Just as it did following Good's shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn't immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good's was.

The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.

Good's death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, with protests happening in Texas, California, Detroit and elsewhere and hundreds of others planned for this weekend, according to Indivisible, a group formed to resist the Trump administration.

“This is hitting people who previously were not engaged,” said co-executive director Ezra Levin, adding that he’s seen a rise in veterans, rural Americans and some Republican voters speaking critically about the shooting.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.

Several bystanders captured video of Good's killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said videos show that any self-defense argument is “garbage.”

The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.

The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.

Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.

Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian and Safiyah Riddle in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.