A recorded video from a Ring camera surfaced online Wednesday, June 22 showing the 43-year-old tattoo shop owner Cesar striking his dog with a folding chair several times, and then locking the puppy in a cage, before pushing the dog down a hill. In a tweet posted on Thursday June 23, VH1 responded to the incident with, “We have made the decision to cut ties with Ceaser Emanuel from Black Ink Crew New York. Since next season was close to finishing production, this decision will not impact the upcoming season.”
Though it isn’t clear when the video took place Cesar’s Lawyer told PEOPLE Magazine, “Ceaser is an avid dog lover and has many dogs and has had in his lifetime, many dogs and other pets. This was an unfortunate situation as I understand it, where there were a number of other aggressive dogs attacking smaller dogs and probably was a lapse of judgment as to how to appropriately break it up, break up that interaction.”
“In some ways, what was not seen in that video, was him protecting the smaller dogs, he just likely didn’t do this in the best way, so he’s seeking assistance and help to make sure that as a dog owner, he’s properly managing it, and understands how to interact in more healthy ways with all types of dogs and all of his dogs, but this is certainly a situation that he had addressed a long time ago. It’s unfortunate that a video that’s probably almost a year old or older surfaced and created such a disruption. It’s something that we’ve addressed and been addressing for some time.”
According to Deadline they have already started filming season 10, which is still airing and will be addressing the problem in some way.