Woman who threw puppy from vehicle during police chase to serve probation
Raylean Chastity Gurneau (Courtesy: Ramsey County Sheriff's Office)
A woman was sentenced Monday for throwing a puppy out of a moving vehicle during a police chase in Ramsey County in January.
Raylean Chastity Gurneau, 27, received a stayed two-year sentence and three years of probation. She was also sentenced to 171 days in Ramsey County Jail but had credit for 171 days already served.
Gurneau is also prohibited from having any pets, according to court documents.
As previously reported, she pleaded guilty to one count of mistreating animals and one count of placing a fictitious emergency 911 call to prompt response in August.
Donovan Alan Goodman led Ramsey County deputies on a chase while driving the wrong way on Interstate 694 in a stolen vehicle on the night of Jan. 30. During the pursuit, one of the truck’s rear doors opened and a puppy tumbled out and onto the road.
Deputies were able to use a PIT maneuver to get the truck to stop and Goodman and another man ran from the truck. Each man carjacked a vehicle at gunpoint and drove away, according to court documents.
Gurneau and another woman were found in the backseat of the truck.
Days after the chase, deputies found the puppy that had been thrown from the truck and named him Taho. He had a broken leg and several cuts.
Taho was euthanized in April after a pattern of biting people and other dogs. Efforts were made to rehabilitate him, but there wasn’t a clear trigger for the behavior and the rescue that was caring for him had to euthanize him.
The rescue said that his aggression was likely due to the abuse he suffered in his upbringing.
Goodman was arrested in February and told police that Gurneau had thrown Taho from the vehicle and made a phony call to police.
Another man who was in the car, Chue Feng Yang, was shot and killed in April by FBI agents after he left a Minneapolis home with a gun pointed at Gurneau’s head.
In the summer of 2022, Gurneau pleaded guilty to a previous charge of animal cruelty when a dog that was placed in her care was found shot 10-12 times with a BB gun and needed to have its eye surgically removed.