'K2' blamed after Texas man tries to eat dog in 'zombie style' attack

A 22-year-old man in Waco, Texas was arrested on Monday after a bizarre episode in which police claim he tried to eat his family's dog in a "zombie style" attack.

Michael Terron Daniel was charged with felony animal cruelty after an unnamed caller told police he was "going crazy" at his family home on Monday night around 6:30 p.m.

(PDF) by the Waco Police Department claims Daniel "is believed to have assaulted several people at the home" after telling them he was "on a bad trip" after using a herbal incense product known as K2, more commonly known as a type of "synthetic marijuana."

"Mr. Daniel then ran into the yard where he was observed to get on his hands and knees and chased a neighbor while barking and growling like a dog," police said. "Mr. Daniel was then observed to take a live medium sized, black dog onto the front porch where he began to strike the dog, strangle the dog and began to bite into the dog ripping pieces of flesh away from the animal. The dog died at the scene."

Daniel was found at the scene covered in blood and fur, the dog's body strewn across his lap. He also allegedly asked police to either fight him or use their Tasers on him to break him out of the bad trip. They instead called paramedics and left him in the custody of medical professionals. An arrest was made the following morning without incident, the report says.

The attack is the first to be blamed on so-called "synthetic marijuana" drugs like those commonly found in blends of legal herbs sold in convenience stores around the country. Those herbs are usually coated with chemical additives that produce a marijuana-like sense of sedation and euphoria. The drugs have been increasingly targeted by federal law enforcement officials, who've only recently added dozens of newly discovered chemicals to the Drug Enforcement Agency's (DEA) schedule of controlled substances, causing whoever is creating them to get creative in order to sidestep the law.

The DEA calls these new drugs "cannabamimetic agents," and notes that over 100 have been detected in recent years, many with unknown effects. In larger doses, which are often impossible to measure with any accuracy, some users of these experimental chemicals have reported suffering paranoid hallucinations, extreme forgetfulness, heart palpitations, elevated blood pressure and seizures.

Similar "zombie" type attacks have been attributed to several people around the U.S. who had allegedly ingested "bath salts" containing one or more legal stimulant drugs. Toxicology results have not yet been made available for the perpetrators of those attacks.

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(H/T: Waco NBC affiliate WPTV)