...Forgettable baggage, huh? Sounds like now might be a good time to remind Myers, and Jets fans with only a distant memory of the case, of the crimes for which Michael Vick served 21 months in prison.
In addition to plunking down $34,000 to buy the Smithfield, Virginia, property where dozens of dogs were chained to car axles buried in the ground while they fought, sometimes to the death, in front of betting spectators, Vick and his co-defendants admitted to killing at least six (but perhaps as many as eight) dogs who did not display sufficiently aggressive traits during the "testing" process.
Several of those dogs were shot; at least two were were hosed down, then electrocuted. Three dogs were hanged, according to a report by the USDA inspector general, "by placing a nylon cord over a 2 x 4 that was nailed to two trees;" three more dogs were drowned "by putting the dogs' heads in a 5 gallon bucket of water."
Vick, with his partner, Quanis Phillips, killed yet another dog "by slamming it to the ground several times before it died, breaking the dog's back or neck." When another of his dogs was disqualified after jumping out of the ring during a fight, Vick had his associate, Purnell Peace, shoot that dog in the head with a .22 caliber pistol.
When federal officers raided Vick's property in 2007, they rescued 53 pit bulls. They also found nine pit bull carcasses, took samples of two skeletal remains, collected spent shell casings, syringes, and "pieces of plywood flooring and dry wall covered with dark stains believed to be canine blood." (Tests later confirmed, yes, the stains were dog blood.)