Posted on 01/31/2007 7:46:51 AM PST by Diddle E. Squat
ANGLETON — A 17-year-old Angleton man has been charged with cruelty to animals after he allegedly tied up a stray cat and let the pit bull he got for his birthday tear the cat apart while he videotaped the incident.
The video ended up on the popular Web site MySpace after he gave the video to friends, but it was quickly yanked.
Paul Miguel will probably be booked today, Angleton police detective Sgt. Kirk Coleman said.
The dog, a brown and white female named Brook, was seized by agents from the Houston Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Coleman said. A hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8 to see whether the dog will be taken from Miguel.
"He has no remorse," Coleman said of Miguel, "He calmly sat and told us that he doesn't like cats.
"He said he likes to take videos and send them to his friends."
The dog was a birthday present for Miguel, who turned 17 on Jan. 8. The incident with the cat took place Thursday, Coleman said.
Angleton police became aware of the incident after getting calls from people who saw the video on the Internet, Coleman said. MySpace has since pulled the video from the Web site.
The cat was a stray that Miguel found in his neighborhood, Coleman said. He said the video shows the dog dismembering the animal.
If convicted of the cruelty charge, Miguel faces up to two years in state jail.
I think he should be put in the cage with the dog, & tell him he isn't leaving until one of them is dead.
That is poetic justice!!
Well, they say that's how serial killers get started."
I've heard that too.
Works for me.
>It's an ugly crime, but it is only an animal. <
If he'd do this to a cat, what would he do to his girlfriend if he caught her with another man? What would he do to his girlfriend's toddler if the child wet the bed, or wouldn't stop crying?
Get this sick excuse for a human being out of society.
If you want to avoid this behavior in your kids, I have a suggestion.
At a very early age, get your kid a pet - a fish or turtle or bird or or mouse or something. Show them how to care for their pet & teach them that they MUST care for the pet or it will die.
As with all pets, it will die. Usually from lack of care. The death of a pet will hurt the child, but it will also teach them valuable lessons about life & death - the fragility of life & how precious & short it is,& their responsibility in helping maintain a life. Hopefully it will teach empathy for animals as well, & respect for all life.
These lessons might not be readily learned, so, get them another pet & another, but not right away. They need to mourn a little bit, so leave the fish tank or the mouse cage on the shelf for a while as a gentle reminder.
Try it. You might raise a better human being, or a Jeff Corwin - both to be proud of.
That's no damn excuse.
I hate cats. But this is just the act of a future murderer.
So would you feel the same way if he threw a live fish to his dog?
Then again, Humans are also 'only' animals when it comes down to it.
If you can't figure out that humans are more than animals you have bigger problems than debating on FR. It was an ugly crime, but make the punishment fit the crime committed, not what he might do, or else you might find yourself subject to pre-crime prosecution.
Do we really want to go there? Would you really want to be subjected to possible prosecution for what you MIGHT do?
Get this sick excuse for a human being out of society.
If I recall correctly, we still have innocent until PROVEN guilty as a tenet of our legal structure. Make the guy do community service in a cat shelter.
"Well, if you want to go that route there are people that still hunt with dogs. Are they the same? How about duck hunters using dogs to retrieve ducks? Think the ducks are completely dead when the dogs get them?"
And I don't think you have a clue regarding what hunting dogs do when retrieving a duck either. They don't kill it, they retrieve and return the duck to its master.
That said, the kid in this story has problems and this incident is a MAJOR clue. These kinds of people wind up killing humans instead of just cats.
So, you have a solution? Should we execute him just in case he might kill a person? Should we take all his rights away? Or should we punish the guy for the crime he committed?
What kind of precedent would you like to set? That just because he might kill someone we should do something? Everyone that happens to own a gun could be considered just as dangerous. It all depends on who you would speak with.
I don't run hunting dogs myself, so you're right there. I do know what happens when you strip people's freedom for what they might do.
Not only is this kid one sick dude. But he is terminally stupid, not only do you have your dog savagely kill a cat, but you video tape it and give the video to friends.
Wonder if he or his father is a freeper.
If your dogs are tearing up the ducks when they retrieve them, you ought to get someone competent to train them. It sounds like you tried to train them yourself.
Plain and simple, this is an act of pure cold evil and it matters not that this was a kid or whatever flimsy reason one could conjure up.
I have heard the comments of people who have seen this gruesome video and not just from animal lovers...oh no, this video has shocked and literally REPULSED those who have seen it including law enforcement.
Apparantly the cat was TIED to the bumper of a car leaving it terrified and completely unable to defend itself. The poor little creature obviously trusted this individual to handle it in the first place only to be betrayed in such a despicable way. They described it as being the most horrific thing they have ever seen, the cat "screaming to it's death" as it was being "dismembered alive" and watching "the life flow out of the animal's eyes".
Anyone who can even remotely defend or justify this act of cruelty by saying it was "just a cat" or that because there are human beings (babies) suffering in the world there should be no compassion for any other creature's pain, has to be themselves near that same realm where Paul Miquel and his cohorts reside, lost and devoid of simple human kindness and empathy. Ah the hate one must have in those dark hearts to share in the glee of another living being's intense fear, pain, suffering and death...the glee in the 'yippee, I did that and good dog!'...how utterly and disgustingly pathetic. It truly makes me sick to my stomach.
You know, there are persons in the world like say Steve Irwin, (conservationist) and others who CONTRIBUTE something to the planet we all share...then you have people like Paul Miquel who just take from the world...who get a strange, sick fascination and satisfaction from not only witnessing but causing destruction. And shame on his parents for contributing to who their son is today and how the world sees him as he truly is.
This is not a small act of one misguided teen or one that should be dismissed in any way for what drives a person to do these things is something disturbing. Deep within that soul harbors a deep and dark anger, a sickness that only grows and festers. These are indeed the dangerous ones that walk among us every day, those who have little or no respect for life, the animal abusers, child molesters, the serial killers.
This kid is young...hopefully somehow he will see some kind of 'light' through all this and the reality of his actions...how horriblly cruel it truly was and find some remorse in his soul. It's been known to happen. Sadly perhaps the only way he might know the magnitude of his actions is if he would experience exactly the same fate as this innocent cat...to know EXACTLY how it felt in those terrible moments before it's life mercifully ended.
In any case somewhere, some time during his journey through this life and all those like him and surely at the end, they will reap what they sow...I have no doubt of that.
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