Posted on 08/23/2006 11:49:41 AM PDT by ShadowDancer
Boy Charged For Meowing At Neighbor Lady
Family Gave Cat Away After Neighbor's Complaints
POSTED: 2:26 pm EDT August 23, 2006
JEANNETTE, Pa. -- Meow. A Pennsylvania judge is being asked to decide whether that word is a harmless taunt or grounds for misdemeanor harassment.
Police have charged a 14-year-old boy with that crime. Michael Loughner is accused of meowing whenever he sees his 78-year-old neighbor, Alexandria Carasia.
The boy's family got rid of their cat after Carasia complained that it was using her flower garden as a litter box. Now, she said, the boy makes meowing sounds every time he sees her.
He said he's only meowed at her twice.
"I've had to put up with this for three years," Carasia said. "As I walk by, I see Michael and his mother. He got on the porch and hid behind the bamboo screen and starts meowing. If I don't make this stop now, they're going to keep doing this to me. I shouldn't have to worry about walking out of the house and being harassed by this young kid."
Loughner said that on July 23 he went out to hold his dog so it wouldn't leave the yard as Carasia walked by.
"She was walking through and she kept looking at us," he testified. "I grabbed the dog so it wouldn't leave the yard. When I put my head down, I meowed."
He said that was one of the two times he's ever meowed at the woman, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported.
"As she walked in front of the house, nothing was said," the boy's mother, Sally Loughner, told the court. "He stepped off the porch to make sure the dog didn't get out. As he reached down and got the dog, he said, 'Meow.' ... She said, 'Do you want me to call the cops again?' I said, 'Go ahead, he hasn't done anything wrong.'"
There is a history of disputes between the neighbor, saccording to the paper.
Sally Loughner told the court that she ended up sending her cat to live with family members so that she could "keep peace in the neighborhood."
Defense attorney David Martin Jr. asked that the case be dropped.
"This should never have been filed," Martin said. "This is not something that police should be wasting their time with or wasting the court's time."
The judge heard from both parties Tuesday. He decided to wait 90 days before ruling, saying he'll decide what to do after seeing how the boy and his neighbor get along in the meantime.
Both of my cats are inside cats and have never been outside.
However, what if you applied the same rules to children? Should we shoot them with bb guns if they wander over the property line? Heaven forbid that they may step on a plant and damage the garden. Oh the horror!
Except she is litigious and you can expect too many people who ought to know better entertaining her ideas...
Yup.
We have a bunch of whining, liberal crybabies here too.
This is obviously an out of control thug teen-ager, committing a heinous HATE CRIME. LOL
How dare he do the same things I would do if I lived next door to the Wicked Witch of the West.
The Old Biddy ought to be sanctioned by the court for "Frivolous suit" violations.
No, But he is one of the Knights who say "Knicht."
"Your pets never get beyond the intelligence of a toddler and can't really communicate with you other than letting you know they are hungry"
That is exactly why they deserve to be shot with bb guns right? Brilliant.
Did you hear about the snake that was so poor, he didn't have a pit to hiss in?
Actually it's the German word for no, Nicht, Pronounced nich, They are doing a number on words that start with the silent K,
Ie: knife, knee, knight, all those KN... words until we get to good old Knut, (canute).
Actually it's the German word for no, Nicht, Pronounced nich, They are doing a number on words that start with the silent K,
Ie: knife, knee, knight, all those KN... words until we get to good old Knut, (canute).
Maybe we should shoot retarded people as well since they don't know any better.
One more thing. When we try to enjoy our back yard their dogs come over to the fence and bark until we are forced to go in. I have taken to shooting them with a hard stream of water from the hose. This usually works.
O.K. I could buy into Nie, the Germanic word for never. Remember Monty Python & co. loved to spoof the Teutonic, especially with English being a Germanic language.
Granted, the cat owner can't have cared that much for their pet if they wouldn't let it live indoors and have a litter box-but the neighbor is obviously trying to perpetrate a frivolous lawsuit. Surely an adult can ignore a kid meowing at them, for heaven's sake.
Any vet will tell you that rubbing a dog's nose in it's feces is NOT the proper way to housebreak them-it is cruel and will not encourage your pet to love you, but only fear you. I never did such a thing to my dog, and she is housebroken perfectly.
Meow I just have to say thanx for that. I really needed a good hearty laugh today. :)
I never did that to either of my dogs, either, and my last one I got at seven weeks and by eight and a half weeks he was completely house broken.
;-)
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