10 examples of violence against cats during Halloween

Halloween is on the horizon and as usual cat welfare advocates have to try and encourage people to remember the dangers and protect their cats against mad people who think that Halloween is a good time to be violent against cats. This is a throwback to mediaeval times when the cat was persecuted across Europe. It is surprising, isn’t it, that people still persecute cats in a ritualistic way some thousand years later.

Cat shoot with arrow during Halloween — “They rushed their cat Ollie to the veterinarian, where he had to be euthanized because of severe injuries from an arrow that had been shot through his lungs.” – PETA. Photo: Twitter

Two useful tags. Click either to see the articles: Toxic to cats | Dangers to cats

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The stories come from PETA. PETA have strong stomachs. They don’t mind telling the stories but I find them hard to read about so I’ll be quite brief if you don’t mind.

A mutilated black cat was scalped and left on the front lawn of their owner’s home in Schertz, Texas. The scalp was next to the lifeless body. Investigators said that this sort of crime involving black cats in more common during Halloween.
Images of a black cat strung up and cut open were shared on social media. WFMYNews2.com reported that an indoor/outdoor cat in Asheville, North Carolina was found mutilated and dead at a grocery store. The dead cat had been sliced open and drugs and needles had been placed on or near the body. Two suspects were caught while a third apparently escaped.
Russell Anderson, the superintendent of Lawton Animal Welfare in Oklahoma suspended adoptions when he noticed the cat abuse trends locally and nationally spiking during Halloween. He told ABC 7 News that he had seen several instances of extreme abuse including animal sacrifices.
Several cats including a black cat called Destiny in the Phoenix area of the USA were badly injured when a person or persons shot darts into their faces including the eyes. Destiny survived after surgery.
In Pittsburgh, the couple found their cat Ollie severely injured with an arrow through his lungs. He had to be euthanised. He was 2 years old. I have expanded on this story below as I was interested in the photo of the boy at the top of the page.
A black cat was shot in the leg in Montcalm County, Michigan, USA. He was described as a lively and vibrant cat who after being shot hobbled back home and lay down in his bed barely able to move. That’s all we know.
A cat was killed when a man bashed the animal against the hood of a police car until he was dead. The man was tasered twice. It happened in Laguna Beach, California, USA.
It is believed that a serial killer, Howell Emanuel “Trai” Donaldson III, was responsible for the disappearance and death of cats in Tampa, Florida, USA. The man had committed murders in the same neighbourhood.
In Sacramento, California a woman saw teenagers messing around with a bag. Inside the bag she found a mutilated black cat still alive. She took the cat to a veterinarian who euthanised him/her.
A cat named Lily who was an indoor/outdoor cat had been stomped on and shot in the head with a BB gun which killed her. The post-mortem examination showed up her devastating injuries which included a shattered jaw and a broken spine including a 2 mm hole in the centre of her skull and a 6 mm hole in the top of her mouth.

X-ray of arrow through cat's head. The cat was shot during Halloween in the US — X-ray of arrow through cat’s head. The cat was shot during Halloween in the US.

Ollie

This is an extension to the story about the cat, Ollie, who was shot with an arrow. The photograph of the boy with his drawing comes from that story. It’s a good photograph isn’t? It indicates the loss that this boy suffered and the impact that the incident had on him. The story was reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on October 15, 2018. The time of Halloween. Pittsburgh police officer Christine Luffey said, at the time that, she’d be knocking on every door on Elmbank Street in Brookline to investigate the death. She felt sure that somebody saw something.

Brookline resident Nathan Orr and his fiancée, Kearston Knapp, said that they heard what they believed was an animal in pain at about 4 PM on Saturday. They open their front door and saw their pet cat Ollie with an arrow through his body. Her children saw Ollie as well.

Knapp said: “My kids went to the window and saw it as well. Whoever did this, they completely traumatise my kids for God knows how long. That was their first family pet. They haven’t stopped talking about it.”

Pittsburgh police investigating after Brookline family says arrow killed pet cat https://t.co/iBy6mpzlO6
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (@PittsburghPG) October 16, 2018

Note: This is an embedded tweet. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

They rushed Ollie to the vet. He was 2-years-old at the time. Nathan Orr held Ollie still during the journey. She said that it was a miracle they got him to the vet alive. But the x-rays indicated that it was a lost cause as the arrow had pierced both his lungs. Ollie had to be euthanised.

They filed a police report the day after with officers at the Zone 3 station in Allentown. They shared the incident on Facebook. Officer Luffey was keen to find the person who committed the “cruel and senseless act.”

The police officer urged people to keep their cats indoors. Mr Orr said that Ollie had gotten out over the weekend. May Ollie rest in peace and may the perpetrators never have peace.

In some people, Halloween triggers the desire to be violent against something, anything and as PETA says the indoor/outdoor cat, roaming around the neighbourhood unsupervised is a perfect target and outlet for their ugly desires. And they still link witchcraft with black cats. PETA are advocates for full-time indoor cats. These abuses against sentient beings are not the fault of cats and neither are they the fault of the cats’ caregivers. They are the fault of the miscreant, mad individuals who want to hurt them. But unfortunately, there will always be these people as part of human society therefore I understand PETA’s argument about keeping cats inside.

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