Here are two stories concerning cat loving women feeding cats. In both, the women show courage and aggression and in both instances they were involved in a crime.
In the first story the woman was a victim of crime and in the second she was the perpetrator of crime.
Cat feeding woman sees off robber
Tampa, Florida, USA: a 75-year-old lady, Karen Lynch, was feeding her cats outside her home. She was minding her own business. It was 6 o’clock in the morning. A gunman approached and tried to rob her at gunpoint. She told him that she had four dollars but he said that he was going to kill her.
She had a tray of cat food in her hand. She threw it at him and it knocked his gun out of his hand. The gun went off and the bullet hit Lynch in her leg. The gunmen fled on foot. Lynch was taken to hospital where she recovered from her injuries.
A friend of hers and a neighbour said that he wasn’t surprised by her behaviour:
“No with her, I wasn’t shocked,” she said.
She has a reputation for not taking any nonsense from people! They have lived in the same area for decades and look after each other. He says that she is like family. The police are looking for a young, tall, thin black man who at 23rd March was still on the run.
Source: Fox35 Orlando.
Orlando cat lover pulls out a gun
This story concerns the other side of the coin. A cat loving woman, Lisa Saunders, likes to feed stray cats in her neighbourhood. A female neighbour complained about it because she thought that the cats were bringing disease to the area, specifically scabies. She was concerned about the children catching the disease. She confronted Saunders about her concerns. There was history in this matter because the woman had called the police and Orange County Animal Control in the past.
Saunders reached for a gun inside her vehicle and threatened the woman with it before getting back into her car and driving away. It’s a shame because that loss of self-control has resulted in Lisa Saunders being charged with aggravated assault with a firearm. She is out on bail, as I understand it.
Saunders is an employee of Dominos Pizza and ironically she had recently delivered a pizza to the complaining woman’s home.
Source: The Wichita Eagle.
Comment
In both instances the women concerned showed a fighting spirit. I like to see that. In the second story I can understand how conflict can arise between a woman who likes to feed stray cats and a neighbour who doesn’t like to see it. Her story is a classic one of polarised opinions about how to deal with stray cats.
On the one hand some people want to help them and on the other some people want to get rid of them because of a perceived threat of disease. In this instance there was no possibility of scabies being transmitted from cats to children in my opinion but that’s how the complaining woman saw it. The tension had mounted due to persistent complaints and then the red mist descended.
The 75-year-old lady in the first story is an incredibly brave woman who risked her life to see off a nasty mugger. I admire her tremendously.
Woman #2 I get because I had a soldier harass me every time I went to feed my colony and the cats were not on his rental property and when he called the cops on me I told him he was dam lucky I didnt have gun because he had thrown my cat food into the street and 2 cats had been hit by cars and killed but I did tell him if he is ever deployed I hope he comes back in a pine box and the cops were shocked at my statement but also understood my anger since because of him I lost 2 precious lives.