"...at least one adult and four horrified children saw Foley beat the cat to death..."
Sorry all you defenders of this insane piece of garbage, but this time I'm definitely on the side of severe punishment for this contemptible deed.
And by the way, cats have a reputation for having nine lives because they are hard to kill. Beating it to death is a particularly long and painful way to die for a cat.
As I have said many times before, killing an animal for whatever reason is one thing, but torturing it to death for any reason is despicable.