A UA employee arrested two years ago on felony charges for shooting a neighbor's dog and putting its decapitated head in the neighbor's yard was arrested Monday for cruelty to animals after police said he beat his dog with his fists and a garden hoe.

Yanik Staley, 29, a mechanic in the Facilities Management Garage, 411 N. Fifth Ave., spent Monday night in Pima County Jail.

Staley's neighbor told police that she observed Staley in his backyard striking his small white dog "Cooter" repeatedly with a garden hoe.

She said Staley took the dog by the hair and began to slam it into the ground, roll it on its back and punch it in the head.

The dog got away from Staley several times and ran to hide behind a chain link kennel in the yard, police reports stated. Each time the dog ran, Staley grabbed the dog, dragged it back into the yard and began punching it again, the neighbor told police.

After about 8 to 10 minutes, Staley dragged the mixed-breed boxer to its kennel and threw it inside, reports stated.

Later, when police arrived at his house in the 1300 block of N. Euclid Avenue, Staley offered to have the officers check on the dog's welfare. Officers reported that the dog avoided Staley. They also detected the dog had a slight limp.

The dog was taken for examination by Animal Control.

Short of showing police the dog, almost all of Staley's account of the incident has been redacted from the police report.

Staley was not at his house yesterday and no phone number for his residence is listed.

Staley and his wife were arrested on charges that they killed and decapitated a neighbor's dog in 2000.

Staley is still being employed by the university, said Glory Novak, director of finance and administration for Human Resources.

University employees are not normally fired for criminal activity unless the charges reflect their assigned duties.

One UA worker mentioned that Staley's continued employment puts her ill at ease.

"You don't know, if he can do that to an animal, if he can go off on a person," said Lisa Clore, senior program coordinator in the Native American Research Training Center.

Clore and coworkers sometimes go to the garage more than once a week to borrow vehicles that they drive to local reservations to start and maintain health programs.

Now, she said, she sometimes drives her own vehicle, rather than go to the garage to borrow a vehicle, because Staley is there.

"You don't know when someone is going to go off," she said. "I don't think I could work with someone like that. I would be scaredˇyou should be able to come to work and feel at ease, and with someone like that I don't feel comfortable."

Cyndy Cole contributed to this report.