Posted on 07/16/2002 3:21:27 PM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Man arrested for burning kitten on grill July 16, 2002 Posted: 4:03 PM EDT (2003 GMT)
A neighborhood friend of Sherry Scott holds the kitten they named 'Lucky,' in a recent handout photo.
LIBERTY, Missouri (AP) -- A man was arrested Tuesday for allegedly burning a kitten on a barbecue grill as several other people stood around and watched in amusement.
A witness pulled the scorched, 7-week-old tabby from the hot coals, but it was severely injured and had to be put to death, police said.
"They kept saying, `Meow, meow,' and they were poking at it with a stick," said Sherry Scott, who burned her hand grabbing the kitten.
Charles C. Benoit, 24, was charged with animal abuse, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine. He was jailed on $10,000 bail.
Jim Roberts, spokesman for the Clay County prosecutor's office, said he does not expect anyone else to be charged, because no witnesses could identify the others.
Scott said that on Friday night, she saw 10 or 12 people at the barbecue grill in the courtyard of the apartment complex where she lives. Scott said she asked what they were cooking, and they said it was a cat. She said the group taunted her, daring her to rescue the cat.
She said the group scattered when she threatened to call police. She said she pulled the kitten from where it had been shoved into the coals at the back of the grill. Its tail, whiskers, fur, eyes and throat were scorched.
"I called him Lucky because I thought I got him out of there just in time," she said.
Scott said she and other residents stayed up Friday night trying to nurse the kitten with an eye dropper of milk. But animal control officers decided that because of its respiratory injuries and inability to swallow food, it had to be destroyed.
"If you would have seen him, you would have cried," said Sheri Simpson, one of the residents who helped care for the kitten.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
"Ohhh , buddy watch out. I took a simular stance (that animal has no soul, doesn't end up in heaven ect.. ) a year or so ago. I think the last hate mail was about a month ago. It is funny how some will condeme this fellow with more zeal than a drug dealer selling to kids. Human life comes formost IMHO.
"BTW... I have animals I love, I am in the process right now digging a hole to bury my mom/mine Austrilian Blue Healer. One of the best dogs I have owned, female of course, full blooded/spayed. Mom wanted her when I moved off. She would take on a dog twice her size and defend mom better than any other dog I have have owned. She was 14 y/o last month. I will bury her between two mulberry trees in the best spot on my property. Gotta go pick her up now..... Boo Hoo Bye Maltida Bay. Will miss ya girl .."
If you are sincere in both halves of the above reply to Rob, then you definitely do not take a similar stance to Rob's...unless you you are able to reconcile the idea that it's ok to torture animals, as long as you don't torture humans too with your apparent love of dogs.
I only scanned your extremely long reply. The color is hard on the eyes. I DID manage to glean, however, that you haven't read all of my posts on this thread. I don't have the vet's number on speed dial, BTW: I have always done most of the doctoring myself.
I can geld a horse - a vet taught me that as a kid, turn a breech calf (or kid), sew injuries, give all the shots, wormer, etc. I DO get most of the stuff through the vet's supply catalog, when it's cheap enough. I really don't know where you're trying to come from.
If something were to happen to my dogwhich was fixable by my vet but not by me, yeah I'd take him to the vet, rather than summarily putting him down. It just wouldn't be fair to a loyal friend to do otherwise.
LOL...you talk like someone I knew once. We went to different schools together.
Because you allege that you grew up on a farm, and use that as an argument for the contention that animals have no feelings.
"Why are you so angry?"
Because empathy is not the sole domain of "city people".
Another assumption on your part. Where did I say animals have no feelings?
PLEASE tell me you are just playing devil's advocate.
And this makes you angry? I don't understand.
Overreaction is not your friend. Interesting list of non-emotive, pre-programmed, mobile "teddy bears" - as Rob terms them - that you have raised.
I've raised horses, dogs, the usual kittens, turtles, hamsters, gerbils, snakes, a squirrel, two coons, ducks, geese, rabbits, turkeys and most other farm animals. We also get the occasional wild gosling who's lost or dead.
You missed my posts about hunting. Accidental, and easy enough, I suppose, in a thread this length. I'll reiterate one of them for you: I like rabbit, but I like it killed swiftly and cleanly BEFORE cooking it.
As long as you don't condone the torture of animals, we should get along fine.
It was my Dad's killing the cat that put me over the edge, I'm sure. Though -- like I said -- I'd eaten game at that table and perfectly cool with the notion of killing animals every bit as "sentient" as house cats (save for their brains being even all the more keen for their living in the wild on their own as opposed to conniving off of humans ... how easy is that? =)
I've always wondered if -- had I been a member of the Donner party -- whether I'd have been so hungry as to eat the corpse of a human I knew who'd died a natural death.
I'm almost certain that despite my dog's being the center of my universe in many respects, had he been on the trip I'd have been hard pressed to admit his life was more precious than that of the humans who might find some sustenance from sucking his bones.
Those all are hypotheticals, though. And hypotheticals -- particularly worst case scenarios and extreme circumstances -- are a terrible way to decide on what is True and the right thing to do.
I guess what bothers me is the way an Extreme Circumstance like this -- particularly the Extraordinary Measures taken to save the kitten's life until the State stepped in and did the Right Thing by Killing it -- rings odd for me.
One ... I don't like stories where the State does the right thing by requiring the killing anything or anybody. (Rabid dogs perhaps being the exception if there be no Atticus's around to take care of their own.)
Two ... it's particularly galling that they'd "force feed" a cat when the vogue in courtrooms in Britain and the US these days is to argue that Food and Water (a/k/a ANH or Artificial Nutrition and Hydration) are somehow an extraordinary measure to keep a comatose patient alive.
In Basil's thread yesterday, she told us of how "her mind played tricks on her" and despite her being in complete cardiac arrest, she Knew she was screaming, convulsing and getting no help whatsoever from the doctors she saw around her.
This cat was alert and badly burnt and requiring Forced feeding. Compassion would have meant killing it on the spot ... the tale circulating locally, perhaps, of the horrible deed and unsettling aftermath.
But this makes the wires somehow (at FR, anyway), and "send the wrong message". We know about "sending a message" here, don't we?
I'm sorry for upsetting anyone's feelings, if not sensibilities, by complaining. But I'm sorely tempted just once to come on a thread like this and mock those with a fixation about kitten Persons as opposed Human persons.
One might think that SPECIES, even, would somehow connote the greater difference of degree in Singer-style Personhood (as entitled to Respect and Right to Life free from purposefully inflicted suffering for whatever reason) than having cleared the birth canal is for BOTH cats and humans.
(Laz quite rightly observed most would draw the same difference in degree between unborn and 7-week old kittens as they would unborn and 7-week old humans).
But is that Bright Line that is the birth canal (as opposed to Specie or Class or Reason or Conscience) something we as humans have always known or something that's been imposed on us by stories like these where Extraordinary Measures for unwanted stray kittens are more understandable than a respirator and feeding tube for one's unconscious kin?
That's my problem. I don't like the transference that's going on.
For water finds a level. If we entitle animals to Extraordinary Measures (besides the ones you're damned right I'll go to for my dog as long as he's happy and painfree), it seems humans may end up end up enjoying in turn some of the ethics of breeders (where drowning puppies is concerned) or the Humane Society (where putting the unwated to sleep) are concerned, that's all.
I stand by all my points (oblique as they may be), but it's the manipulation and redirection of our feelings that offends me with this article.
Surely this sort of violence is as matter-of-fact daily occurence as death in the womb. (or is it?) Surely it's gone on as long as man's been alive. (like abortion)
Why is The One Kitten such a big deal?
Cruelty to a born creature.
Lots of people have a hard time even envisioning cruelty to an unborn creature; thusly, abortion in America.
However, everyone can understand cruelty to a born creature; thusly, child-abuse laws and animal-abuse laws.
Pretty simple to understand, Askel, no matter if you agree with the concept or not.
I don't think the One Kitten is the big deal. The Big Deal is inflicting pain for entertainment. I think the "extrordinary measures" and seeming disproportionate amount of sympathy for the cat is a measure of embarassment that one of our own (human) is capable of it. IMHO.
Speaking only for myself, it was the wanton act of torture that's a big deal.
BTW...you went to pieces over a cat that was mercy killed thirty years before? THAT I've never done. I hope that was a typo, or my tired eyes read it wrong.
You should dismiss us if it makes you feel better. But instead you attack us because you can't ignore us. That's your tactic.
Neither Rob nor I stated that what this "perp" did was OK! We just don't feel it rises to the level of calling the cops and having him thrown in jail. Now if he tortured someone elses cat, now that's another story. He maliciously damaged someone else's property, "book-em".
Like I said in previous post, you make a lot of assumptions about people you don't even know. You seem to be letting your anger get the better of you. You jump to conclusions not supported, you attack people you don't even know. Calm down!
And my Siamese agrees....
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,,, good point. What we're seeing on this thread is the manifestation of civilisation over-applied in regard to the kitten. No need to bring the Taliban into it - duplicate BBQ behaviour has been suggested by those who have taken offense. By offering a view like that of Rob Roy's (note that he said this horrific act was wrong), some posters have placed him as a virtual accomplice to the act. They've been unable to effectively separate the abstract (the story) from reality.
And I can't imagine why... 
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