Three Young Children Face Charges in Shocking Kitten Abuse Case

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By Karen Harrison Binette

Two kittens are recovering in foster care and three young children face likely felony abuse charges. We declined to cover this story when it surfaced last week but decided to do so now without detailing the abuse in print. Details on the incident are available in the accompanying video. Our focus here is the recovery of the kittens and potential charges against the abusers.

Patrick and Henry

Patrick and Henry were turned over to the Animal Friends Rescue Project of Pacific grove, CA after their ordeal and are recovering in foster care. Both are being treated for eye damage, and one of the two faces surgery to have an eye removed. The kittens’ littermate suffered a severe brain injury and had to be humanely euthanized. AFRP said at their Facebook page on August 4, “Patrick and Henry will be available for adoption in 3-4 weeks, once they have healed from surgery and are sufficiently healed emotionally. It’s wonderful to see them playing and trying their best to be ‘normal’ kittens; they deserve perfect homes.”

It is a sad fact that cats and kittens are abused, tortured and killed somewhere every day. This case stands out because of the ages and gender of the tormenters. Two girls and one boy, aged 5, 7 and 10 tortured the  three kittens in Watsonville, CA on July 28, causing one to have to be euthanized, and making the children responsible for its death. The other two were treated appallingly but are expected to make a good recovery.

The Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter announced on Friday that they are seeking felony animal abuse charges against the three children. There were eyewitness reports on the horrific actions of the children, and someone called the police, which put the crime on record and helped save the lives of Patrick and Henry, while allowing the third kitten to die a merciful death instead of suffering.

Santa Cruz shelter manager Melanie Sobel is quoted saying “We want to send a clear message that this is absolutely unacceptable behavior by these children towards these defenseless animals.” Sobel also said of the case, “This needs to be addressed right now, because it could escalate into more serious egregious acts of violence against humans or animals. Serial killers; there’s a 100% correlation between all of them having abusing animals as children. It doesn’t mean these children are going to grow up and be serial killers, but all serial killers have abused animals as children.”

Given the ages of the children, the felony charges may become watered down in children’s court. Even if they are prosecuted and found guilty, it is likely that the offenders will get “help” instead of punishment, but this felony charge recommendation is important in the message it sends that acts of cruelty against animals should not be taken lightly, accepted or ignored.

 

Central Coast News KION/KCBA
Animal Friends Rescue Project is gratefully accepting donations towards their medical care. Those wishing to donate can do so HERE .

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15 thoughts on “Three Young Children Face Charges in Shocking Kitten Abuse Case”

  1. Disgusting and shamefull and unbeleivable—I feel so bad for those babies . Sad world when KIDS are capable of such evil. Scary to think what they will be capable of when they get older.

  2. Young children being given FELONY Abuse charges is hard, but necessary, this I understand, but what I do not understand is why the parents are not also being charged with Contributing to the Delinquency of a minor? The kids might know the difference between right and wrong, at least they should have the developmental level to understand the difference, but somewhere along the line they were never taught to respect live, ALL LIFE and I hold the parents directly responsible for that.

    So kids will be kids, but to purposely cause severe pain and torture on small kittens is not being a kid. That is evil and probably mimicking something they have seen adults do to animals or people or, God forbid other children.

    Prayers to St Frances that the remaining kitten make a full recovery and they do not lose full vision. And they they do not have any lasting mental or psychological issues.

  3. I will never understand how people can be so cruel. And then we hear about children doing these horrible things to defenseless animals. And yes I agree, where are their parents, these are not teenagers, there kids doing unspeakable things.

  4. Sorry to say but some children are pure evil. There is no excuse for this. Who was watching these kids? Obviously no adult supervision.
    Michael Vicks of the future.
    I hope these poor kitties survive.

  5. The evil human children and their parents need to be charged and banned from ever being allowed to own or be around animals. I really hope that these kittens get into a good loving home and maybe even stay together.

  6. I can’t not believe they had to endure such abuse poor kittens. The parents and the children should be investigated for abuse of their children, then put in jail then some therapy and fined.

  7. For the love of Jesus above!

    No one would like what I have to say about what should be done with these ‘children’, so I will keep that. I hope the authorities land on all involved and dig deep to find out the basis for this behavior.

    Unfortunately I have to agree with the others who say the fault may not lay with the parents. I come from a family of four kids, I’m the oldest, two sisters and one brother. My brother I recall, tortured a kitten as a child. I did not know it at the time it happened or I would have beat him silly. But he has always been careless of others and their feelings and in trouble since he was big enough to get into it.

    The three of us (my sisters and I are fine and turned out OK with good families and (I like to think) decent citizens that contribute. I am a Deputy Sheriff, and my brother is in Angola State Penitentiary. He was coddled somewhat as a small child due to some health issues, but he was given good values, as we all were, and totally rejected them. My dad did EVERYTHING he could think of to head him off for years until it just got too bad and he had to admit defeat.

    Sometimes it isn’t the parents fault. They are just evil.

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