But after he moved the trapped animal from city property into the shade in his adjacent yard, Turner found himself facing a potential $652 fine for what police now say may have been a misunderstanding.
The 30-year-old audio technician had no reason to feel friendly toward the skunk, which lived on a city-owned snowplow-storage lot next to his home at 169 W. Oakland Ave. (2470 South). On July 31, the skunk crawled under the fence, through a cat door and into Turner's first-floor bedroom.
"It sprayed directly under my bed," Turner said. The next day, he came home to find the animal attempting to nest under his stove.
"I walked past the kitchen and saw this skunk rummaging through the groceries," he said. His girlfriend, Avette Allen, called animal control, but all they could offer was a trap for a $50 deposit. Allen refused.
Instead, Turner talked to the city employees next door, and they set a trap on the Friday afternoon of Aug. 1. The animal was captured that night, but when the sun came up the next morning, Turner said, the dark-colored trap turned into an oven.
The city's animal-control and public-works departments were both closed for the weekend, he said, so he decided to water the overheated creature. Then, at about 5 a.m. Sunday morning, he pulled the trap over the fence using an improvised garden-tool device so he could give the creature some shade.
"It's just a matter of that's the humane thing to do," he said. "Leaving an animal to die in a metal trap over the weekend isn't humane."
He tucked the trap under a rosebush, he said, and went to sleep. At 9 a.m., he awoke to a police officer in his yard asking for identification.
A police report indicates that an animal-control officer reported the trap missing, and told police that the residents of 169 W. Oakland had "demanded" animal control remove a skunk. The report says city employees had placed the trap but sometime over the weekend it had been moved. The police officer wrote that Turner's explanation about caring for the skunk's welfare "did not make any sense and did not sound like the truth."
South Salt Lake police Capt. Jack Carruth said the officer may have mistaken the report from public works or misunderstood Turner's intention.
"It sounds like it's some type of misunderstanding of a good deed on his part that may have gone awry," Carruth said.
Turner was not cited, although the police officer said the case would be screened by the city attorney. He thought nothing more of the skunk until late September, when he received a municipal-court summons charging him with criminal trespass and failure to appear for his first court date, for which he said he received no summons.
Turner's potential fine totals $652, according to court records. He pleaded not guilty on Oct. 2, and will have another court date next month. The skunk, meanwhile, was picked up by animal-control officers on Aug. 4 and killed.
Despite his resulting troubles, Turner said he would not have left the skunk to suffer in the sun.
"I would rather be in the situation I'm in now than not do anything."
lwhitehurst@sltrib.com
