Eight-year-old charged with animal cruelty

The Washington Times/UPI ^ | 7-8-03 | N/A

[JustPiper]

MIAMI, July 7 (UPI) -- An 8-year-old Miami-area boy faces felony charges after causing massive injuries to a 4-month-old kitten because, he told officials, he was bored.

The Miami Herald said the kitten suffered a fractured skull, fractured palate and head trauma when the unidentified boy swung it by its tail and slammed it to the ground near his Lauderdale Lakes home.

[Ben Bolt]

He should be held accountable for his poor behaviour . I agree . While you seek the what if I see the what is .

[HiTech RedNeck]

Don't buy into a fatalistic sort of reverse Calvinism. (I have no comment about orthodox Calvinism.)

[Slyfox]

Meanwhile on another thread

[Pan_Yans Wife]

First, I call for him being sentenced and treated.

Then, I call for him finding peace within his poor tortured soul.

The two points are distinct. But, I do not see how they are unreasonable.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Sometimes a moral humbling is called for. God brings that about, various chastenings, for those who love him... a paradox. But God is not a Simon Legree of course.

[HiTech RedNeck]

MILLVILLE, N.J. (AP) — An 8-year-old boy who safely stopped his aunt's sport utility vehicle after she went into diabetic shock will be recommended for Scouting's top lifesaving award.

Thank you for that!!! Of course we don't know how good a piano he got, either.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Chastening... this always makes me think that the Holy Spirit embodies more strength within us, after such trials. More suffering, more love. Christianity isn't for everyone, LOL...or rather, it is for everyone. :)

[Pan_Yans Wife]

LOL

[HiTech RedNeck]

As for peace... another paradox. The punishment for our peace fell on Jesus Christ, yet God also chastens us to train us to the "peaceable fruit of righteousness." A congruence with Christ who bears our sin and yet distinct and with responsibility, a becoming something new.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

36 hrs awake... (shh... took a two hour nap).

My pillow is calling.
Nite.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Shower and snack and pillow for me. 'Nite.

[cinFLA]

I don't think I understood that death was eternal. I don't think I had ever heard of the term felony... or was even aware of the grave consequences that would arise from doing such actions. I don't think I was aware of the extreme suffering that animals can go through. I don't think I was aware of my own strength, and what I could physically do to harm an animal.

Somewhere around the age of six I knew. I knew that the neighbor boy that killed my cat was evil. I knew that evil people went to jail. I knew I did not want to go to jail. I knew. He knew. Can he be helped? I don't know. Do you?

[jeremiah]

This is time to watch him closely, but not in a jail type environment.

[JustPiper]

I posted something similar, stop screaming ;)

[JustPiper]

Bump to my friend Coleus for finding the good...he always does -g-

[Ben Bolt]

I dont call him anything . The anti social behaviour needs to be corrected . This is not something we as a society can relegate to the negligible column of our ledgers .

This is not debateable . You want him treated and I dont see the need to burden taxpayers . Life & the reality of it comes in several forms .

You want to hug him into the village and I say the real world should have a clarity of focus in his life .

[MississippiMan]

Okay, cite for me what he knows.

No, thanks. This is obviously a pointless exercise. If you think an eight-year-old thinks such an activity was harmless fun, sort of like getting out the old crayons and coloring book, to relieve the boredom, then that's what you believe.

MM

[PleaseNoMore]

We recently made the mistake of acquiring two adorable kittens from an elderly woman who couldn't care for them. It was our sincere intention of finding suitable homes for them together as one is deaf. The mistake in this was that we have a dog who has become settled and who, quite frankly, is not tolerable of cats. Last night my oldest ( 17 yo) son mistakenly left the door to my bedroom open and our dog charged in and snapped at one of the kittens and when she did she fatally wounded the dear thing. While the kitten lay there taking its last breath ( we knew there was no hope and the vet is miles away )my children surrounded it with love and tears and said their goodbyes. My youngest child is 6 years old. He understood very well what was happening and why. Actually, his concept of the dying process was amazing. His ability to understand the finality of the situation when the kitty took its last breath.

While I firmly believe that this child in the article needs counseling and may have some serious emotional and psychiatric issues that need to be addressed, I disagree with the "throw the book at him" mentality. He is a child regardless of his actions. I believe that with sincere intervention he is "worth saving".

I could also be mistaken in my own reasoning but I cannot understand how an 8 year old child does not understand that his actions would cause injury or death to the animal UNLESS he has a disorder that disables his thought process with regards to cause and effect.

[drlevy88]

Literal jail with bare cement and bars no, but sometimes "institutions" with their highly regimented and constrained environment can be the answer to gathering these messes up and (dare I say it or at least use it figuratively?) when needed whipping them towards some kind of shape. No not something out of 18th century England and Charles Dickens and hateful stepparents and hellish capricious boarding schoolmasters, maybe not even literal, but there is a certain point of pressure. The private ones outstrip the state owned or state dependent ones by light years because they can DO this, or at least do it better. Granted the cost can be a problem.

For kids of Christian families, there's one I know of: New Horizons Ministry based in Marion Indiana. Sorry no website I know of. They have camp facilities in Canada and Dominican Republic. It is one of the missions sponsored by my church, a church which isn't at all harsh in tone (in fact sometimes I think too indulgent) though very insistent on the literal truth of Scripture.

[MistrX]

Future child molestor.