It's a story as old as time, really.
Zheng Chen, an Ohio State student, spent the summer in China. Before he left, however, Chen placed care of his bull-mastiff, Roger, in the hands of a fellow student, Austin Farley. Chen claims he compensated Farley for his labors.
When Chen returned to campus for fall semester, it appears Farley had grown quite attached to the bull-mastiff.
The pickup, according to Chen, got hectic.
From Chelsea Spears of The Lantern:
“I was stabbed by (a) knife,” Chen told a CPD dispatcher. “Somebody cut me with (a) knife.”
[...]
“A young man took my friend’s dog, and we come to his house to get the dog, and he bring a knife out and cut my friend,” Chen’s friend told a different dispatcher in a separate 911 call.
Farley doesn't deny he pulled a steak knife on Chen, but insisted in his own 911 call it was for self defense:
“They tried to come at me and I had a feeling something was up, so I pushed them out of the apartment. I had a kitchen steak knife on me for defense. (I) pushed them out and then ran up (to my apartment),” Farley said. “I just want them gone. I don’t want them to get into my apartment.”
Unfortunately for Farley, he didn't really think this one through.
Roger was equipped with a microchip that showed Chen to be the rightful owner. According to The Lantern, Farley was booked on felonious assault charges. After cooling his heels in jail for "several days," Farley bonded out on last Friday.
Chen, for his part, seems rather understanding:
“Roger is a sweet, huge dog,” Chen said. “I don’t know how to describe (him). I think everyone loves big dogs that obey their master.”
It's that, or Roger is a sociopathic manipulator.
