When someone shouts "duck!!" at you, it doesn't necessarily mean take cover...NEW BEDFORD, Massachusetts (AP): A driver who ran over and killed a mother duck walking her 12 ducklings across a Massachusetts mall parking lot has been sentenced to a year of probation, which means that at any time during this probation year that any offences, however slight, does occur, the driver in question will face a posibility of jail term.
Witnesses say Joshua Linhares deliberately drove at the ducks in the Dartmouth Mall parking lot in June, turning sharply and speeding up. Surveillance video from nearby stores supported their account, The Standard-Times newspaper reported.
The 25-year-old man testified he didn't see the ducks because he was distracted by a woman waving her arms at him.
He says he left the scene because he panicked.
New Bedford District Court jurors took 15 minutes Tuesday to convict him of animal cruelty.
The ducklings were adopted by a family and then released into the wild.
