ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It was a wake-up call nobody wanted, and nobody asked for, in a southeast Albuquerque neighborhood.

Neighbors say they witnessed severe animal abuse one morning earlier this month. Now, they want to track down the suspect before it happens again.

“We awoke to hearing a dog – a puppy – screaming, screaming, screaming, really loud. Everyone in the neighborhood could hear it,” one neighbor said.

She said it was coming from right below her bedroom window.

“I saw an individual beating the puppy to death,” she said.

She says she then yelled, trying to get the attacker to stop.

“I said, ‘Stop that. Stop. What are you doing? Stop that.’ And he yelled back, ‘It’s my dog. I can do what I want to with it.’ And apparently he killed it,” she said.

Surveillance video from a nearby business caught the alleged abuse. A young man walks across the parking lot, clearly holding something. Then, he takes it to the corner closest to the nearby apartments.

While it’s hard to see what happens next, the neighbor says it was not hard to hear.

“We’re just concerned. We’re concerned about it in the neighborhood,” she said.

A group of neighbors put up flyers with the young man’s description. They’re asking anyone with information to call the City of Albuquerque’s Animal Welfare Department.

The neighbor says she also had no luck with investigators herself.

“They want us to have the name and the address of the individual. And it’s been my experience that criminals don’t usually flash their ID at you, you know? But we know what this person looks like,” she said.

A representative from AWD told us the division conducted a full investigation. But they say, because of the poor video quality, a lack of physical evidence and identifiable suspect, there isn’t enough to investigate further.

In the meantime, this neighbor’s worries are only growing.

“We’re afraid that this person may be doing more of this and might be a hazard to animals and children in the neighborhood,” she said. “The big irony is that I work in the mental health field. And so I have had experience with individuals who have started out torturing animals and then moving on to children.”

It’s a fear she does not want to see come true. It fuels her urgency to find the person in question.

“We’ve got our own little, like, neighborhood crime watch thing going on and everything. And everyone’s pretty horrified about this,” she said.

On her NextDoor post about her experience, neighbors have left hundreds of comments expressing concern.

A few animal rescues are now also involved. In fact, they are helping to offer a $500 reward to anyone with information leading to an arrest and prosecution.