I would say there’s nothing inherently “cruel” about using a club to dispatch a small animal. One good solid crack on the skull and death should be pretty much instantaneous. We don’t know here, and won’t know, upon which strike the cat died. Could be it was dead on on the first blow. Why the excessive number of hits? I have no idea. That’s worth finding out.
But the mere fact that the officer used his PR-24 or an ASP baton to kill a cat is in no way “cruel”, all by itself.
When one has a more instantaneously lethal means of dispatching a cat and chooses not to use it, it reflects on the person who resorts to using the less lethal instrument.
Clearly, the cat was not dispatched at the first beating and perhaps it may have attempted to get away from the officer: “The officer told him to contact police because of damage to the house. There are stains and smashed siding around the porch. “
The witness describes the incident happening “on the porch”—where he apparently left the cat.
How to account for the smashed siding? Either the officer has incredibly poor aim that his blows rained down upon the siding, not the cat, so that the cat suffered through *indirect* blows, or the cat had enough strength/energy/will to live that it tried (futilely) to get away from the officer.