70-year-old African tortoise, a beloved preschool pet, beaten and stabbed by assailant
The 65-pound African sulcata tortoise underwent surgery Saturday night to extract two chunks of wood that were embedded in his shell, part of which had been dented by blows.
SAN JOSE — A 70-year-old tortoise named Michelangelo, a preschool pet that would follow the children around his garden and let them sit on his back, was found beaten and stabbed Saturday with a gate post.
The 65-pound African sulcata tortoise was undergoing surgery Saturday night to extract two chunks of wood that were embedded in his shell, part of which had been dented by blows.
Doctors at ARCHVET clinic in San Jose were hopeful he would survive. San Jose police told the preschool owners they have a man in custody.
Tammy Lariz, a co-owner of Play ‘N’ Learn Preschool on Massar Avenue in East San Jose, said she was horrified when she discovered the beloved pet bleeding in his enclosure.
“I thought he was dead for sure,” she said. “You just had to be absolutely sick to want to go over there and stab a tortoise like that. He’s super friendly.”
The roughly 70 children at the preschool, ages 18 months to 5 years old, adore him, her husband, Marc Lariz, said.
“They just think he loves them, too, but he knows they mean food — they grow it, pick it and feed it to him,” he said. “He follows the kids around.”
The Lariz family acquired the tortoise — which is about two-and-a-half feet long — about four years ago through a rescue program. The children named him Michelangelo after the Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.
On Saturday morning, a neighbor called police about a man who was yelling and breaking things in the playground. After police arrived, they summoned the owners. They told the Larizes, who are part owners in the family business, that they had a man in custody. The couple saw the man in the back seat of a patrol car, but didn’t recognize him.
San Jose Police spokesman Christian Camarillo said Saturday evening he would have no information until Monday.
While her husband and police were assessing the property damage, Tammy approached the 20-foot by 40-foot fenced garden at the back corner of the playground, where Michelangelo usually stays in a miniature little log cabin.
“My gut just said to go check it,” she said.
The first thing she noticed was a rake handle jammed into the tortoise, lodging about 8 inches deep between his head and leg. She yanked it out immediately.
“The tortoise was very upset. He was so scared, you could tell,” she said. “It was the only time he ever hissed at us. He squeezed up his body really tight and didn’t want to come out.”
Around the tortoise they found the attacker’s weapons, including a bloody metal bar that was part of the gate that may have been used to try to crack open the shell, and broken glass from floodlights that the suspect had removed from the outdoor sockets and apparently smashed on the tortoise as well.
Lariz believes the main weapon was a 4-foot by 4-foot gate post. She found long, thick shards of it embedded in the top of the tortoise.
Every time the tortoise tried to move, she said, blood oozed out of the seams of his shell.
She and her husband picked up the tortoise and put him in a blue plastic wading pool with a few inches of water. It quickly turned red.
They transported him to the veterinarian, who has worked on these kinds of tortoises before. Their lifespans are about 80 years.
“I hope he makes it,” said Dr. Tal Solomon, who was preparing Michelangelo for a three-hour surgery Saturday night. He hoped the wood shards weren’t deep and didn’t hit the lungs.
The staff that checked him in were “all upset” to see such abuse, said vet assistant Leticia Elizondo.
By late Saturday, Michelangelo was out of surgery. “It went great,” Solomon texted. The tortoise was starting to peak his head out of his shell. Solomon offered him strawberries.
The Lariz family, which has lost a tremendous amount of business during the coronavirus pandemic, said they were unable to afford the operation and were reluctant to bring the tortoise back to the boisterous preschool for recuperation. They said they were grateful when the clinic offered to do the surgery and keep the tortoise in their care.
But what will they tell the children?
“I don’t even know. Everybody’s going to have a hard time with that one,” Tammy Lariz said. “We’ll probably tell them that the tortoise is sick, it got an owie. Someone hurt him, it wasn’t nice and he’s at the doctor’s office and they’re putting a bandaid on it.”