Man Arrested For Burning Kitten on Grill

AP/CNN | 7-16-02 | my favorite headache

[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 This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

[SupplySider]

You don't have to think animals are on the same level as humans to respect their lives. This is not an animal rights wacko point-of-view, either, as most hunters and meat eaters respect animals.

[Askel5]

Sorry to hear you had a predator of some kind. That's always a terrifying experience.

[RobRoy]

First, your comment about slaves is a red herring. Second, we obviously come from different philosophical positions on this thing. BTWE, to show you how much we differ, I consider the sea mammals as part of the non-human BM group.

That's ok, it's what makes this site so fascinating.

[RobRoy]

You have obviously never stepped on a cat's tail. If you had, you'd know that you don't need to "program" it for all hell to break loose.

That is the program!

[RobRoy]

Yeah, so don't kill kittens for fun.

I agree. In fact I'll bet you do things I don't think people should do, and I do things you don't think people should do.

Lucky for everyone neither one of us is God...

[RobRoy]

re your 379. I agree. However, I, having not had TV for quite a few years, see our culture from a different perspective than most. I see the torture of a kitten as the least of our problems in this arena. I think there was way too much moral outcry over this, compared to far worse evils that happen daily.

That's all.

[JavaTheHutt]

First, your comment about slaves is a red herring.

OK, please explain how this is a red herring. Personally, I see absolutely no difference in the slave owner of olden days feeling saying he had a right to torture, mutilate, and take the life of his very own personal property, and your statement that if this guy was the owner of the kitten, then he did nothing that should be considered illegal.

[RobRoy]

I agree, I just don't respect them as humans. I don't respect women as men, I don't respect men as women, and I don't respect animals as human. I respect them as animals.

Oh, and I eat them.

[RobRoy]

OK, was the slave a human being? If so, this man's logic was quite flawed. People can rationalize all sorts of bizzare beliefs if there is enough in it for them.

Also, many slave owners saw their slaves as their responsibility and treated them with kindness as the Bible instructed them. It was a different time.

Some were treated with more dignity and respect than many "free" men today. The issue is not as simple as many would presume.

[Momaw Nadon]

OK, Confession time.

When I was a kid, about 7, I think, I used the light of the sun and a magnifying glass to fry ants.

At about that same age, I would also catch insects in the garden. Sometimes, I would put insects such as a praying mantis and a wasp in a closed glass container and watch a 'battle of the bugs' to see which insect would win, sort of like an insect cockfight.

At that age, I didn't feel bad about it, but now I am very sorry and ashamed that I did such things when I was a kid. I hope God forgives me.

Recently, as an adult, I had a moth in my apartment. I could have easily killed it, but I didn't think it was right to do that. So instead, I chose to turn the lights off in the house and leave the door open with a bright light just outside the door. The moth flew out of the apartment, and I closed the door.

Again, I'm very sorry for the cruelty that I commited when I was a child.

[JavaTheHutt]

Because to me the real story here is that so called conservatives even on free republic want to expand the role of government even to the protection of ANIMALS, a massive constitutional leap. RobRoy, post #378

"States should have the right to enact reasonable laws and restrictions particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life that otherwise could live." George W. Bush -Cleveland, June 29, 2000

Given W's propensity for using the death penalty, we can be sure he wasn't making a reference for the abolishment of executions in this country.

[Askel5]

It's a big deal because dogs and cats love us and trust us with their lives with a purity which no human relationship can match.

Ahhh ... now we're getting to the heart of the matter where Pure Animals and Evil Humans are concerned.

I don't see any evidence animals love God. Do you?

Animals appear to be "pure" because they have no free will and are explicitly bound by their natures to operate within the confines of God's natural moral law.

They don't feel guilty for killing each other -- even if purely for sport, as a cat will do with a mouse -- because they have no consciences.

I will take a human's imperfect love over a dumb animal's natural faithfulness any day for the human Chooses of his own free will to love me.

Generally a social animal and friend to all, my dog has a decided pecking order of folks he tolerates, folks he enjoys and folks he'll go nuts over every time he sees them ... howling and talk-talk-talking with delight and pressing his head against them to hug them. Clearly, he loves them. But equally as clearly, this response is the result of the fact that his favorites shower him with love and walks and petting and treats.

Behavioral Psychology, then, is perfect to prove the Stimuli-Response that is the hallmark of animals, however social or independent or reasoning or intelligent we know them to be.

It is not applicable to humans, however, save by those sorts who perceive humans primarily as animals and seek to refine and condition their response so as to exert the same control over humans that God's Natural Moral Law exerts over animals with no free will.

[RobRoy]

Yeah, the word "human" before the word life is conspicuous in it's absense.

A fly is alive. Will George let me kill a fly?

Put bluntly, the word "human" was omitted to make sure he doesn't loose any animal rights votes, in my opinion. He probably didn't think the omission of the word would cost him votes, so why not?

[RobRoy]

Once my dog starts showing signs of diabetes or arthritis et al, it will be put down, period. Be it lethal injection, bullet or shovel, and it will be for both of our sake.

Then, if I still want a dog, I'll go get a fresh new one.

[Nowhere Man]

Shoot the sicko. That's all I can say. Being the proud owner and companion of 10 cats (9 currently) and 2 dogs (none now), I can't fathom how anybody can do this to little animals, children, old people, anybody. As Juan Rico said in Robert A. Heinlein's book, "Starship Troopers," "We shoot mad dogs, don't we?" Well, we have a few candidates here, the one here with the kitten and the other who did horrid things to that poor Runyon girl. Taliban style justice is too good for these guys.

[JavaTheHutt]

Once my dog starts showing signs of diabetes or arthritis et al, it will be put down, period. Be it lethal injection, bullet or shovel, and it will be for both of our sake.

The rest of us can only hope that your children have the same attitude towards you. But why bother with the injection, bullet, or shovel? Why not just toss it, alive and aware into a flaming barbeque pit, and get a few laughs out of watching it die a painful tortured death?

[Nowhere Man]

The choice is yours. However, in felines diabetes can be managed for years. It only takes me the time to fill a syringe and inject twice daily to keep this cat in apparent robust health. If I have any doubts, I have a glucometer to test the cat's blood, and that only requires the time to poke a hole in the cat's ear and collect no more blood than would fit on the head of a pin, and then wait a minute for results. I'm not squeamish; doing these things comes easily.

I've had me trials too. One of our cats, Muffin, a black Burmese cat, had a kidney infection in January. One vet said that she had kidney failure and would have been dead by February. The main vet we took her too said, "you don't write her off like that." Well, he diagnosed the infection, we had her on antibiotics for 2 months and a high carb supplement 4 times a day. We also gave her special kidney food. She is back in the peak of health, running around, chasing and playing with the kittens, getting into trouble, etc. She will be 15 years old next month. She has put a lot of her weight back on, it seems like she was never sick at all. We still give her kidney food and the high carb 2 times a day. Our vet said there might be a slight bit of kidney damage there so he says, keep her on it just in case. I know pets will leave us one day, it is a given, but it is no reason to write them off as the first or even second option.

[RobRoy]

Why not just toss it, alive and aware into a flaming barbeque pit, and get a few laughs out of watching it die a painful tortured death?

That may seem ok to you, but why would I, or any normally developed adult find pleasure in that. 'Course, I don't watch horror movies either. I don't like to watch suffering.