This is the story of a Missouri mother who recently went to jail over the family cat. Andrea Boenker, a resident of Wentzville, was arrested recently, all because her then 2-year-old daughter let the new family cat out of the house. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, Wentzville is a city located in western St. Charles County and has a population of around 30,000.
Andrea is the mother of two daughters and a nurse. Her story began last summer when the family got a new cat. Thriller, a black and white beauty, was let out of the house by Andrea’s daughter Morgan , who was only two at the time. Thriller ended up at the local shelter. Andrea went down to the shelter, where she paid the fines to the shelter and the city to bail Thriller out of kitty jail. She thought that was the end of things.
Andrea recently got the shock of her life when she came home from work and her husband told her two police officer’s had come to their home with a warrant for her arrest. There was an outstanding animal at large ticket, which is given when someone violates a leash law. Many areas now consider cats running free illegal, and not only pertaining to dogs. So Andrea went down to the local police station to clear things up about their cat. The doors locked behind her when she went inside the station, and Andrea was informed she was under arrest.
The problem started when Andrea says a clerk and an alderman told her she wouldn’t have to go to court if she paid the fines. Apparently the information given Andrea was unreliable, and Andrea missed the court date because she was told she didn’t have to show up. She admits receiving the notice to appear, but disregarded it. The warrant the officer’s had come to serve was a “failure to appear,” meaning she had failed to show up for court, which automatically puts you on the bench warrant roster. Sometimes it takes awhile to be served, due to there being so many people out there committing small crimes that police don’t have the manpower to deliver warrants in a timely manner for minor offenses.
Andrea was in jail for less than three hours, but she wants to warn others out there of how little it takes to get locked up these days. KSDK5 News spoke with the mayor of Wentzville, who admitted there are problems with cats being on the animal ordinance. He said the board of alderman will be discussing kinks in the system in the near future.
Meanwhile, Andrea now has a criminal record. If she’s never been in trouble with the law before, she can likely get it expunged by a circuit court judge. I wanted to do this article because so many cat lovers who reside outside the United States don’t realize some of the lame laws we have to put up with. It’s illegal to allow a cat outside unsupervised in many areas. Cat owners who live within city limits usually have more strict rules than those living in a country environment. I wanted to share Andrea’s story so no more cat ladies have to spend time in jail over an escaped cat. If you ever get a citation for animal at large, be sure you know what you’re required to do, and be sure that information comes from a dependable source.
I’m curious what the readers here think of this, especially those living outside the U.S.
Pleased that you agree.
I like the point that you make about cats in Cyprus and Turkey etc. live as community cats. That is the natural way for the domestic cat to live. It is the way the domestic cat lived when it was first domesticated. It is probably the best way for a domestic cat to live. The gradual increase on pressure in America to keep cats inside is a gradual drift away from naturalness and you wonder where it is going to lead to. Ultimately, it is about attitude: the differences in attitude of the people of America compared to the people of Europe and in the area where you live. There almost seems to be a sliding scale.
In the Middle East, Cyprus, Turkey, and most countries of the world 99% of cats live full time outside. They have lived that way since long before villages , towns, and houses were built, the same as birds, wild animals, trees, and butterflies. To enforce indoors living on these creatures is hardly something to be protected by laws, but rather a case for the opposite can be made. This just another example of how the USA is rapidly becoming a lunatic asylum.
The actions of the authorities could be seen as detrimental to the health and well being of Andrea’s children as well as the cat involved since she was thus prevented from protecting and caring for them whilst undergoing this highly questionable arbitrary arrest based on crass insane laws. I suggest the authorities and police should be prosecuted for child and animal cruelty.
I so agree!!
Wentzville’s on I-70?
This is really a classic case of the failure of leash laws or laws concerning animals and shows how indiscriminate they can be because the person arrested is clearly not a criminal. She is the last person who should be arrested and while they are arresting her dozens of genuine criminals are walking around the neighbourhood.
It’s a bit of a cock up really and a series of mistakes built upon a rather indiscriminately applied bit of legislation. Is it true that in America there is a very gradual tightening up of the freedoms of cat owners? It seems to me that at a local level there are more and more laws which prevent cats going outside. I might be wrong but that’s the impression I get.
I wonder whether it is actually possible to effectively enforce laws which prevent cats going outside the home unsupervised. It seems very complicated to do this.
However, I can understand the reasoning behind the introduction of these new laws that prevent cats going outside unsupervised. It is just that cats tend to escape from the home for all kinds of reasons and if that happens the police have to do something about it but do they have the time and the motivation to do it because this is such a low-level crime.
It couldn’t be more low-level and innocuous. In fact a domestic cat being outside unsupervised, logically, is not a crime whereas by contrast a person hitting another person without justification is obviously a crime, at a commonsense level.
I think this is the underlying problem with animal laws that require people to supervise their cat outside. Failure to do so is not an obvious crime because nobody is being hurt and nobody is suffering loss just because the cat is outside unsupervised. I wonder whether these laws will survive.