On December 28, Robert Marinelli, an interior designer, took his dog, Luca, on a seven A.M. walk around West Hollywood, up a stretch of Sunset Boulevard between the Soho House and the 1 OAK nightclub. He turned left off Sunset and was walking up a residential street when a man suddenly jumped out of a black sedan, pushed him over, and snatched Luca, his eight-year-old French bulldog, who is missing a toe.
While Marinelli was trying to pry the pup out of the back seat, the car door slammed shut, catching his clothing. As the sedan sped off with Luca, it dragged Marinelli down the road. Skin from the waist down ripped open before the fabric finally tore, freeing him. “I was bound and determined that they weren’t going to take the dog,” he says. “But they were bound and determined to take the dog.”
