Video shows Brooklyn man apparently beating his dog with a stick

SUNSET PARK (WABC) -- There's new video of a man in Sunset Park, Brooklyn apparently beating his dog.

The video is very hard to watch. The wails of pain from the dog are difficult to hear.

Wednesday night, the dog has been taken away, and the man's neighbors are now pushing for justice because he may not be charged.

It's so hard to hear, we're only playing about a second of the dog's wails, but the attack at the hands of its owner went on for nearly 30 seconds

To Anthony Torres, it sounds, "Like an animal dying. Like somebody burning him alive or something. The cries are ridiculous."

He lives next door, and had his friend record the beating with a cell phone. Watch as Anthony's neighbor delivered at least five blows to the dog's back with some sort of stick.

Anthony says he's been hearing that crying practically every day.

"We thought he was training the dog. He said he was training the dog, so we give him the benefit of the doubt, now we got video. Once they showed the video, that's not training a dog," Torres said.

The video quickly made the rounds on Facebook. And Wednesday a handful of animal lovers made their way to the dog owner's block in Sunset Park to protest.

"When I saw the video it was horrific and sad and something needed to be done. I can't even explain in words what I felt when I saw that video. It's just disgusting," said Veronica Cruz, the protest organizer.

No one came to the door when Eyewitness News knocked Wednesday evening.

Police say the family who lives there owns five dogs, and the owner has been cooperative, even polite.

They have even allowed officers to take the dog shown in the video, a female mastiff, to the ASPCA for evaluation. Police plan to take the other four for a full inspection as well.

"This is active, there's no way we're ignoring this, and we're involved," police said.

Police spent all afternoon reassuring protesters the NYPD is on the case.

But cops say filing criminal charges may be easier said than done, because of old laws that classify animals as property.

Cops say none of the dogs had obvious injuries. So they'll need proof of cruelty from doctors at the ASPCA.

Anthony says the proof is in that video and he wants his neighbor to pay.

"He's a cool dude, yeah, he comes down here, he got video surveilling the block, helping us out, but behind closed doors he's an animal. If you see the video he's an animal," Torres said.