Woman suspected of dumping cat in trash can under police protection

social_maladroit

Suitable punishment for her? Obviously, that would be being required to perform in front of a crowd of drunk juggalos without a top on at four in the morning.

So was that a garbage bin or a recycle bin? Oh well, I hope the cat’s feeling chipper.

idontwant2liveinoprahsworld

Forget this lady.
We should have cameras on politicians and CEOs.

ryanrafferty

Wait a sec… I just reread the headline…. How can she be suspected of throwing a cat in a garbage can when the video makes it clear? I could understand if the headline read “woman suspected of animal cruelty after trashing a cat”… I know boingboing is trying to be on the safe side of things, but I think it’s obvious she was recorded dumping a cat in the trash.

Snowrunner

Because legally until you are convicted in court you are only a suspect. Doesn’t matter what you have seen or the evidence. Legally you are accused until convicted by the courts.

Talia

Keep in mind this is the internet, and the anonymity granted by it makes people much more likely to say things they wouldn’t ever actually act on. Pretty much all the people calling for blood, etc are all talk.

And no, she shouldn’t sue anyone. That’s an obnoxiously American course of action, particularly when she was the one doing something wrong in the first place. Its like those stories about burglars suing homeowners when they fall and break an arm or something.

Anonymous

“Keep in mind this is the internet, and the anonymity granted by it makes people much more likely to say things they wouldn’t ever actually act on. Pretty much all the people calling for blood, etc are all talk.”

This is known, in lay terms, as John Gabriel’s Greater Internet F#ckwad Theory (see http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/3/19/ for diagram).
JohnnyOC

Yes, it’s obnoxious, but if she gets threatened or hurt by some animal-rights wackjob,, I’d say that’s a pretty good argument.

Anonymous

Crazy Lady! http://www.zazzle.com/british_lady_who_threw_away_someone_s_cat_tshirt-235001096686843872?group=womens&lifestyle=classic&rf=238523477890361372

ackpht

That woman will spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. Justice? Debatable. Her fault entirely? Certainly. Feel sorry for her? Not me.

g0d5m15t4k3

I agree. She will be thinking everyone’s watching her for the rest of her sad life. If we’re lucky she will go insane and get put in a home.

Its likely what will happen is she gets fined money or has to do community service.

I think a great punishment (that actually fits her crime) would be something along the measure of a fine, apologizing to the owners in person & getting to wear a sandwich board reporting herself to be the lady who threw the cat in the trash. Good old SHAME for her. She doesn’t deserve death.

Mark Frauenfelder

If she’s guilty, she should be confined in a facility and given treatment until she no longer poses a threat to animals (and humans).

JohnnyOC

That, I can agree with. The lady needs some help.
Brett Myers

If she’s found guilty, she should be given an appropriate sentence and/or fine by the court.

Zhiva

# Woman suspected of dumping cat in trash can under police protection #

Was she really under police protection when she threw cat in the can?..

Jesse M.

The comments from her family in the Sun article were interesting:

The guard was put in place as her mum Celia claimed her daughter actually LOVES cats â€” and doesn’t know what came over her.

She said: “Her father Maurice is hospital in the moment and is very ill. I think she was just in a world of her own. We all are at the moment.

“Mary said she just didn’t know what possessed her, or what came over her, it’s just very strange because she cannot explain her actions at all.

The human mind is a funny thing–one can perform all sorts of weird actions “unconsciously”, and be completely unaware of things you’d really expect a person to be conscious of, just look at the gorilla/basketball experiment (or the Harvard changing-student-behind-the-counter experiment shown here). So although everyone seems to be leaping to the conclusion that this must have been deliberate cruelty, I think it is actually possible that if she was in some kind of mentally frazzled state she may have just dumped the cat in the bin as a sort of reflex, because some part of the brain just thinks if you’re standing by a bin you should put nearby stuff in it. I’m not saying this is the most likely explanation, but I think there’s at least a decent chance it was something like this.

blueelm

Kind of like the people who lock their two year olds in their cars here, crack the windows, and go to work while their kids die in the 107 degree heat?
- Jesse M.
  
  Kind of like the people who lock their two year olds in their cars here, crack the windows, and go to work while their kids die in the 107 degree heat?
  
  Yes, a lot like that. Personally, I do feel bad for the parents in those cases if it was really pure absent-mindedness (though of course I feel worse for the kids), which doesn’t mean I’d disagree with anyone who says the parents should be prosecuted for manslaughter. Empathy is not the same thing as a legal judgment! And I do also think that cases of criminal absent-mindedness, including forgetting to take a kid out of a car, are the sorts of things that any person has some slight probability of doing on a bad day–I have a “there but for the grace of god go I” kind of attitude about that stuff. I think people who immediately go into a self-righteous fury when they hear cases like this and think “I would never, ever do something like that” are deluding themselves…the ego is very good at deluding a person about their own competence, but psychological experiments like the ones I mentioned show how easily we fail to notice or misremember really basic stuff about what’s going on around us.
  
  Again, I don’t know if the case of this woman really is an example of that sort of absent-mindedness, or if she just had a moment of cruelty and is pretending not to remember because she’s embarrassed. I’m just saying I think it’s possible her story is true.
polychlorinated

Indeed. In fact, she might have even been flummoxed AND frazzled!
“What is this? A banana? Bananas belong in the rubbish bin; for land’s sake what is this world coming to?”
Cruelty may not start deliberately sometimes, but it certainly finishes as such. Her actions were at any time reversible and she chose not to go back in the following 15 hours.
Maybe she can be released under the justification of the Milgram experiment defense and she was only following the authorities in her head. Maybe in reaching for a plausible explanation you have to really reach beyond your freshman psych class.
Maybe you are thinking even less than Miz Bale.
l0gic

And yet, drunks who commit acts without remembering them (and are proved to have committed the act, beyond a reasonable doubt) are still (usually) held accountable for their actions.

This would be the same, no? Whether or not she was in a fugue state, the human being that is her put a cat into a trash bin. We may never know who was in control of her mind at that moment, but I’m sure the cat doesn’t care.

With regard to the family issues, father in hospital, etc, I know everyone reacts differently to extremely emotional times… but that doesn’t give you a free pass. My father died late last year, I’m fairly young and this was pretty unexpected. I’ve yet to put a cat in a trash bin, or anything unethical, illegal, etc due to my state of depression.

Don’t kill her, just punish her appropriately according to the law. If it turns out it was some sort of “fugue” state, MONITOR HER for crying out loud until she’s in a better mental state.
- Brother Phil
  
  Drunks who do things and don’t remember them are generally held to be accountable for their actions because they deliberately chose to get themselves into that state. People have been found not to be culpable if the drunken state was involuntary (eg spiked drinks).
  If this was generally the result of a temporary mental aberration, then it would not be appropriate to hold her liable.
  Sounds like an excuse to me, but it also strikes me as a bizarre thing to do in the first place.
  Maybe I’m just not that kind of rshl.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  If it turns out it was some sort of “fugue” state, MONITOR HER for crying out loud until she’s in a better mental state.
  
  If she’s in a fugue state or suffering from mental illness, I’m completely in favor of helping her. I don’t actually believe in punishment even for real criminals, just risk management. But I have a big problem with anyone who doesn’t think that this is animal cruelty. I think that dismissing this as no big deal is symptomatic of empathy deficit disorder or sociopathy.
  - Chupacabara
    
    Fully Agree that the issue needs to be looked into, and I would be really pissed if this had happened to one of my cats… my dog, not so sure, but my cats, yeah, I’d be pissed.
    
    I just feel that all the vitriol and venom spewed here, and on the cat’s facebook page, and in the SUN comments… is WAY over the top.
    
    Heck, you have a group in the middle east right now that want to sever a mans spine as a punishment.
    
    The cat was scared, and inconvenienced.
    
    What she did was WRONG… But how wrong? Michael Vick wrong?
    
    Bet the lady is pretty damn scared now as well. I would hazard a guess that she is more scared than the cat was and will be traumatized by her actions for many years to come. Do you really feel she has not learned her lesson by this point? I’d be willing to bet she has.
    
    She’s no Michael Vick.

blueelm

Personally I love it. One of the nastiest things about abusive people is the fact that they often are able to hide themselves, even from themselves. I don’t wish her to be physically harmed, but I will admit I’m kind of glad she’s been massively exposed.

Maybe it will give her some time to reflect on the kind of person she’s turned into.

WaylonWillie

Ok, I know it isn’t a popular opinion, but isn’t there anyone else out there who wishes, just a tiny bit, that someone would do this to your cats?

Macoy

BURN HER AT THE STAKE!

ThomDowting

Part of the problem is the police statement from the Guardian in which they say she cannot be arrested because she has not committed a crime. Bullocks. This is false as has been pointed out by several people over on Metafilter who have cited, chapter and verse, the criminal code section pertaining to animal cruelty.

Vigilante justice is most likely to arise in a vacuum where the state has abrogated its responsibility and failed to perform its duty to enforce and uphold the laws.

If the state won’t perform it’s function then the mob will step in to do it for them. And the mob often has a tendency to forget about the laws and why it’s even there in the first place. If the police charged with upholding the law can forget about or ignore it, then it seems imminently reasonable that individuals taking it upon themselves to fill the void won’t be terribly concerned with adhering to it either.

If Socrates didn’t stand a chance then my guess is that Mary Bale probably won’t either.

This could all be solved by arresting the woman and charging her with the crime of animal cruelty.

Just sayin’

Anonymous

“Part of the problem is the police statement from the Guardian in which they say she cannot be arrested because she has not committed a crime.”

But they’ll arrest people for taking pictures, right? Unbelievable.

tyger11

I CAN HAZ BLUDDY VENJANSE?

arikol

@ThomDowting
you really think that /b would be appeased by mere police action?
These people are screaming for blood, not appropriate punishment.

PathogenAntifreeze

In the last notable case of video evidence of cat abuse on Youtube, /b/ in all of its glory hunted down the identity of the kid harming the cat, and gave the information to the local police authorities, where criminal justice action ensued.

So yeah, /b/ people in general might be satisfied with police action.

Anonymous

Animal torture (which this obviously is) is a sign that doctors use when evaluating people who have the potential to murder. Her nonchalance while doing it is truly scary.

Art

I am disgusted with the woman’s actions, the internet ‘outing’ of her actions, the rabid cries for her execution and most all forum comments.

This whole internet “thing” kinda REALLY sucks.

Anonymous

For those of you who don’t see this woman’s actions as all that horrible, and especially to those of you who try to minimize the awfulness of the situation by pointing out things that you think are even worse and deserve greater attention, I suggest you exercise your brains by doing this:

Think of what it’s like to be a helpless creature trapped in a sweltering bin for hours. Think of what it’s like for the owners of the cat.

That’s all you need to do. Consider this situation on its own. No comparisons to any other ills in the world need to be made. It’s about having compassion for a helpless creature and the people who love her.

Snowrunner

I am not mimizing her actions, I just don’t think it deserves the outcry that seems to erupt from it.

If people really care about animals / people there are many worse things happening on a daily basis they should get worked up about.

Anonymous

Amusing to read so many pet lovers advocating such violence against the woman, regardless of her motivation or mental state. Inflicting pain and cruelty upon a human being is fine, as long as no one is being mean to animals (or at least not the cute and cuddly ones that we don’t slaughter in mass quantities to eat…those don’t count.)

t3hmadhatter

Why is the trashcan under police protection?

snakedart

Calling for blood is absurd, but so is the implication that, having invested hundreds of hours over many years in the care of my pet out of love and devotion, I shouldn’t be just as offended by someone’s callous disregard for her well-being as if they had, say, pushed my mother off a bridge or locked my father in a basement, is just as insensitive.

Really, folks. A woman abuses a cherished pet and some of us refuse to understand the angry response? You can acknowledge without condoning, just as I acknowledge this woman might be batshit crazy and in need of help.

Anonymous

Definitely not a nice thing to do. But is it just me, or does anyone else wonder about this aspect of Brit sensibilities:
(1) Woman dumps live cat into a bin, and an lynch mob assembles at her house.
(2) Woman dumps a live baby into a bin–is there ever a lynch mob at her house?

antfarmer

I’m guessing the woman would be sufficiently re-educated if they required her to spend a few hours in that garbage bin with the lid down. It might give her some perspective on what the cat experienced at her hands.

Anonymous

Many posters on here want to cry that a human being cruel to a cat isn’t that big of a deal, but it is. Cats, pets, children are at the mercy of those bigger than them. What kind of sick satisfaction did this woman get from doing this? She needs help, but this couple had EVERY RIGHT to post the video! This woman was not in her private home doing this to her own (god forbid) pets. I would want to know this if me and my 3 cats (ages 12, 13 & 19) and dog lived next door to her. PSYCHO!

avraamov

travtastic â€¢ #146

‘If someone did this to my cat, I would without a doubt do my very best to kill them.’

‘But to say “It’s just a cat!”, or “It’s just a trash can!”, is the height of fucking barbarism.’

what? did you really not see two different moral worlds colliding in your comment there? are you two entirely separate personas in the same brain? i suggest you go to bestgore.com and realign yourself.

this cat-bin storm wants to blow over, and quickly.

travtastic

You’re exactly right. How very schizo of me to wish injury or death on someone who tried to kill a member of my family, AND think that hurting innocent creatures is barbaric! How very Orwellian of me.

But yes, in all honesty, I’m not really sure what you’re trying to imply here. That I should do nothing when some jackass hurts a cat, because I don’t believe in hurting cats?

theawesomerobot

oh, the internet.

Gutierrez

Build a bridge out of her!

What happens when we substitute cat for a less popular animal? Say a rat or snake? I guarantee the rabid froth would be a fraction what it is here. Counseling and community service picking up garbage. That way she gets some of sensation of being stuck in a dumpster and there can be some discussion about why doing this was just pants on head stupidity.

MadMolecule

@Brett Myers: The problem with your argument, MadMolecule, is that the cat didn’t die.

No, if the cat had died, I would have said “She killed the cat.” I said she attempted to kill the cat. That’s the difference between attempting to do something and actually doing it. If I shoot a gun at someone and miss, I’ve attempted to kill that person, regardless of whether I succeeded. The only reason she didn’t kill the cat was that the cat’s owner happened to have installed a video camera, and happened to look at the video before the cat died in there.

It’s not “a big harmless plastic tub” to a cat that’s unable to get out and has no food. Do you agree that the cat could have died if the someone hadn’t gotten it out of the trash can first? I.e., that the woman’s actions could have killed the cat, even though that did not happen?

@Chupacabara: Please don’t put quotes around words that I did not use. I never said she “Intended to kill the cat.” I said she “was trying to kill the cat.” I’m trying to clarify a distinction between “intending” to do something and “trying” to do something. I’m saying she tried to kill the cat, no matter what her intent was.

Granted, my first post in this thread was typed quickly and could have been clearer. I have expanded on my meaning several times since then. I’d appreciate it if you would read my subsequent posts and try to understand my point, instead of citing one phrase over and over and pretending I said something I didn’t.

Chupacabara

Sophistry.

You no more know what she was TRYING to do than what she was INTENDING to do.

And as I stated earlier, to think otherwise is silly.
- MadMolecule
  
  I can’t make it any clearer than this:
  
  Trying is not the same as intending.
  
  Please tell me if you disagree with either of these two premises:
  
  1. She intended to put the cat in the trash can. I think we can agree on this, right? It’s pretty clear from the video that it was intentional, and not an accident.
  
  2. The cat probably would have died in there if not for a lucky break. The cat was unable to get out on its own, and had no food or water. Can we agree on this as well?
  
  My assertion is that intentionally performing an act (#1), when you know that act is likely to have a certain consequence (#2), is the definition of trying to achieve that consequence, whether or not you actually intend that consequence.
  
  Most U.S. criminal codes agree on this in their definitions of “attempt crimes,” and more importantly, the governing law in the jurisdiction where this took place appears to as well.
  - Chupacabara
    
    I’ve stated my case clearly and succinctly. If you cannot understand by now that you, as well as ALL OF US on this thread, are incapable of knowing what this woman was TRYING to do, or what she was INTENDING to do… then there is no point discussing this any more.
    
    You have gone from initially posting -
    
    “You do understand that she was trying to kill the cat, right?”
    
    to
    
    “The cat probably would have died in there if not for a lucky break.”
    
    And again I say “SOPHISTRY”
    
    You have absolutely no basis from which to state what this woman was trying OR intending to do.
    
    Maybe she is pissed at her local garbage men and she was trying to scare them, and that was her INTENT all along.
    
    Who the fuk knows?
    
    But feel free to keep right on keep claiming you somehow do know what she was trying, or intending to do.
    - MadMolecule
      
      So you think it’s possible that she did not intend to put the cat in the trash can?
      
      Ah, forget it. I’m asking you questions and you’re ignoring them. I’m responding to your posts, trying to clarify points, and you’re just repeating the same couple of things over and over.
      
      I think we’re done here.

travtastic

If someone did this to my cat, I would without a doubt do my very best to kill them.

Yes, it’s a harmless trash can. Unless it’s trash day. Or unless the owners of the trash can have some trash to throw out, and crush a kitten to death. A kitten which is literally incapable of defending itself.

I can understand saying “Well maybe she has mental issues!” But to say “It’s just a cat!”, or “It’s just a trash can!”, is the height of fucking barbarism. Have some empathy, half of the internet. Shame on you. Seriously.

Chupacabara

“the height of fucking barbarism”.

So… tossing a cat in a wheelie bin is “the height of fucking barbarism”…

In other words, on par with say…

The decapitation of Daniel Pearl, or the gassing of millions of Jews and Russians, or Cannibalism, or Jeffrey Dahmer, or clubbing baby harp seals?

The hyperbole on this subject is something else.
- Donald Petersen
  
  Cat people serve their masters well, in thought, word and deed. ;^)
- travtastic
  
  Well then, I apologize for your overly literal take on one phrase of my comment.
  
  Now, aside from the fact that we have officially managed to bring up the Holocaust in a comment thread about sadistic animal abuse (awesome!): please do allow me to bring to attention the fact that “the height of fucking barbarism” that you so nicely cherry-picked out of there was referring to the numerous commenters who think that animal abuse is not a horrific crime, but may in fact be fun for 10th grade trolling endeavors. (Ref comment #149: “HURR I’M EDGY! I KILL INNOCENTS FOR LAFFS!”) Now if that particular comment was from an upstanding citizen, I apologize, it was the first I happened to scroll up to.
  
  But, if I may:
  
  “But to say “It’s just a cat!”, or “It’s just a trash can!”, is the height of fucking barbarism.”
  
  Now, and I apologize, what I clearly meant to say was “Cats in trash bins is the most mathematically horrible thing that one being can do to another!!1! It’s worse than genocide and half as bad as my raging hyperbole!”

Anonymous

She should be made to do community service in an animal shelter where they put dozens of healthy animals to sleep daily.

I will however comment on the contrast. It clearly illustrates how desensitized we are to human suffering, (we see them killed / tortured constantly for entertainment) but still have veins of morality around the animals we think of as pets.

Anonymous

Hmm. I was wondering if it was going to turn out that when she pet the cat, she found it did not have a color (of course, mine don’t either), concluded it was a stray and “confined” it while she called Animal Control about the stray she’d found.

Their first question was bound to be, “Have you captured the animal someplace?”

Guess not. I suspect that the Internet’s intervention in the matter has gotten her off the hook, winning her sympathy and assistance from the police.

In Utah, animal cruelty is a felony. Soon after this new law was enacted, a man dumped a bag of kittens in a dumpster. Someone noticed, and the kittens were pulled out minutes later; all fine.

The man was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison, considerably longer than first degree murder.

Eleven. Years.

Presumably, the kittens were turned over to Animal Control, who likely disposed of them painlessly.

I take that most BoingBoing readers think that is appropriate justice? Petition to enact similar laws in your own area.

OTOH, if that seems a bit much, you might want to think things over. Because you can get what you wish for.

Anonymous

Reading this headline on my RSS feed led me to believe that the act of dumping the cat in the trash was itself under police protection, not the woman. Disappointed to find out I was once again the victim of my own grammatical imaginings.

ill lich

I think we show her horrible act worldwide via the internet, so everyone can know what a cruel person she is.

Oh. Nevermind.

zapgunner

I wish more people would take this course of action with cats. I personally prefer a burlap sack and a lake, but that’s just me.

Anonymous

I hate nasty nasty people, Mrs Bale your one!

Anon (Wales UK)

RedMonkey

The frothing and theorizing is maddening:

She looked both ways before putting the cat in, she knew she was up to no good and didn’t want to get caught – her parents saying “she’s really a good person” is what all people who love assholes say about them when they get caught doing something stupid. This lady is as clear an asshole as anyone I’ve ever seen get caught doing something assholish.

Her parents not loving her, her father dying, her not getting to be prom queen is a bunch of bullshit excuses for an asshole to do something stupid – it makes her still an asshole.

Pay the fine – move on – I’m sure the internet has more assholes to deal with then just this one.

Anonymous

If every single outrage were countered by someone saying, “Well, golly, worse things happen all the time!”, then we really shouldn’t bother prosecuting people who commit less heinous crimes than others. After all, if there are worse things that happen, like a woman getting acid thrown in her face, why bother getting upset when, say, her husband merely beats the daylights out of her? Well, I guess we should apply the same thing here – sure, this woman did something that resulted in suffering for a cat, and put the cat’s life at risk, but hey, thousands of chickens are treated poorly every day so that you can eat a chicken sandwich.

Because bad things happen on a wide scale doesn’t mean that seeing an isolated incident isn’t going to affect people.

The reason this particular episode has upset so many people is that it was caught on camera. It usually isn’t.

Blue

It’s not real animal cruelty until she tries to put the recycle bin inside the cat.

Anonymous

If the Woman DIDN’T want any of the Disparaging comments or threats made against her she shouldn’t have done it. In my Humble opinion she should get a large fine, Maybe A Few thousand Dollars will convince her not to do it again.

pyster

I might be a bad person, but I hope that many bad things happen to her, over and over again, until she checks out.

Matt Staggs

Hopefully justice – you know, the criminal justice system, not the vigilante kind – will prevail. In any case, she’s probably gone and made herself someone to be shunned by her neighbors, friends and coworkers, and that’s probably going to be a punishment all its own. For the rest of her life, she’ll be the subject of incredulous whispers and maybe even overt rejection from regular people. She’ll never live this down.

Mark Frauenfelder

She will go down in history with the likes of Gerard Finneran, the airplane rage-defecator.

Finnagain

“she turned me into a newt, burn her, burn her”

Right, except in this instance we have video evidence that she did, in fact, turn someone into a newt.

The cat got better.

Anonymous

No one rose this kind of noise when a video from the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs hit the internet. People sat on their hands and farted. But some old b***h tosses a house cat into a wheelie bin and the idiots go wild.

Damn, Internet. Get your shit together.

Antinous / Moderator

No one rose this kind of noise when a video from the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs hit the internet.

Or maybe you were snoozing. We had villagers with torches and pitchforks trying to cross the moat just because we covered the story.

SaltySamaritan

Really!!!!??!?!? its just a cat, and I can Really!!!!??!?!? itâ€™s just a cat, and I can guarantee you, it had nothing better to do that day than sleep inside the trash can rather than on top of it or under the car or wherever else it is cats sleep. It is ridiculous to equate what she did with attempting to strangle a cat to death. Worst case scenario the trash guys come flip open the lid to empty the bin and a cat jumps out, heaven forbid! Or letâ€™s say they hook the bin to the truck and dump it in. I am pretty sure the cat would be able to “land on its feet” and escape. Cats are like ninjas just putting one in a plastic bin that might or might not get dumped later that day, is not an attempt to kill the cat, it takes allot more than that to kill a cat believe me I have tried… :)

Chupacabara

When I was a kid, the whole clan went on a camping trip. While there, me and my two cousins dug a BIG hole next to a tree, then we took my little brother, stripped him starkers, tied him to the tree and poured honey all over him. See, in our minds, we were going to catch a bear, and little Bro… well he was the bait.

He screamed and cried and got rope burns all over himself. My cousins and me… well we got our backsides tanned pretty well and then had to be what amounted to slaves for my brothers for the next day… which he LOVED and TOTALLY took advantage of.

And now, 30 years later, we still laugh our asses off about the whole incident.

Sure glad there was no CC Camera’s or interwebs around then because then there was time we knocked him out with a brick, or the time he stuck a dart in the back of my head, or when my sister crazy glued my fingers together as I slept…

I have 2 cats and a dog. If I were to see someone mistreat one of them, and the least the will get is a colorful piece of my mind… the most they would get would be a good shiner.

Point is It’s a cat. The worst that happened to it was it was scared and inconvenienced for a few hours.

The lady has paid her dues ten fold already.

Cat’s OK…

Enough with the frothing mouths, fire bolt shooting gazes, and death wishes.

stosh machek

putting the cat in the bin = stupid
ridiculously over reacting w/ violent suggestions of retribution = stupid
…stupid on top of stupid
…wtg evrybody

JayConverse

Here’s the true modern horror – she’s no longer anonymous, just like most of the posters on this thread (except for me, Brett Myers, and the moderators). When you’re anonymous on the internet, you can as be stupid and self-righteous as you want. When your name is on the internet, you expose your soul.

agreenster

I wont make anonymous death threats. But if this were my cat, and I caught this woman doing this in person, you better believe I would punch the living shit out of her.

avraamov

i just went from a ‘cat in a bin’ shitstorm to ‘and in other news, here’s a monkey dressed up as a man tied to a goat galloping along’ lol-fest, and now it’s back to the shitstorm.

talk about two different moral universes going on.

Anonymous

What kind of sick person does that to an animal? She needs to be charged with animal cruelty!

sic transit gloria C.F.A.

Well, she got a pretty good scare, I guess, and the cops will keep her from getting hurt until people cool down, and she probably won’t ever dare do something like this again; so, I suppose justice has been more-or-less served.

Art

#92 states: “so, I suppose justice has been more-or-less served.”

Well said, sic transit!

I’ll remind you of this the next time you’re secretly videotaped doing something stupid/so bad with your name, face and address posted on the world wide web :)

Jerril

“Worse things happen to other less cute animals” is not an argument that we should let people do bad things to more photogenic or popular animals.

That’s like arguing that because there’s people being murdered, we shouldn’t get upset over someone getting punched in Canada. This Does Not Follow. Punching people isn’t nearly as bad as murder, torture, or genocide, but it doesn’t make punching people OK, and it certainly doesn’t mean that since you aren’t out there stopping murders and torture and genocide you can’t stop the puncher.

That’s not logic, that’s justifying gross apathy by setting impossible standards.

nuschu

Based on the video it looks like she knew what she was doing. She walks right up to the cat, pets it and then looks around before she does anything. Then after looking up and down the street she drops the cat in the bin and then walks away pretty quickly. It just seems a little suspicious to say she didn’t know what she was doing when she appears to be making sure she isn’t witnessed doing it.

The Daily Mail article says the RSPCA is leading the investigation, but I wonder if it’s just poor wording to say that she didn’t commit a criminal offense. Maybe the RSPCA has to bring some sort of charges after interviewing her before the police will take action.

lasttide

On the scale of cruelty, where 1 = Insulting a random person on the street and 10 = Systematic genocide (this is a logarithmic scale), I think tossing a cat in a garbage can might rank around a 3. Anything under a 5 (tossing a brick off an overpass into oncoming traffic) constitutes a “meh”.

Antinous / Moderator

Notable that the commenters who have the least empathy for the cat are the ones who are least able to understand that ‘throwing her to the lions’, etc. is hyperbole/figurative speech.

mlw99

Antinous, how can you be sure that any commenters understand the difference? More than a few rowdy crowds have been created throughout human history using nothing more than choice rhetoric.
avraamov

antinous -

given the general tenor of the debate here, i’m not altogether surprised. it’s been a depressing day in these parts.
kramski

Throwing her to the lions may be hyperbole, but it does represent the real possibility of a shitstorm of hatemail cluttering her inbox, prank calls disrupting her life and other things of more “You Dun Goofed” proportions.
Did we approve of what happened to that girl? I forgot…
malthusan

Which is all well and good right up until the moment someone drags her out of her home, stuffs her into a bin, then burns her. Or just stabs her while she’s out shopping. Or sets her house on fire. Or any number of ridiculous things people might do because what’s hyperbole to you is simple justice for someone else.

If this woman suffers grievous injury at the hands of vigilantes, will you still stand by your “hyperbole/figurative speech” defense? Will you claim mental illness or circumstantial fugue states for your demands for retribution? Will you say, “Well, I didn’t mean for anything bad to really happen to her.”

At what point will you show this woman any empathy? Certainly not now because she hasn’t paid for her sins. Perhaps when she goes to jail? Nope, because then she’ll be paying for her sins. When her father dies? When she loses her home and her job? When? When she will she deserve the empathy you are so eloquently demanding for the cat?

I’ve read very few comments in this thread that showed true antipathy for the cat or its circumstances. I’ve read far more comments from people whose figurative speech is just plain scary.

I’m disgusted and appalled by this woman’s treatment of the cat. I’m more disgusted and appalled by the vicious, snarling, vituperative “hyperbole/figurative speech” that, at least, condones and, at worst, demands retribution against this woman.
- Anonymous
  
  waaaaahhhh! vigilantism! waaaaahhh! Wont *someone* empathize with the cat-killer???
  
  There’s a lotta animal torturers that are scared shitless right now. Some of em are people you’d least suspect.

kramski

If politicians or corporations want to expose our data on the internet it’s a terrible terrible thing. If we do it to people whose actions we don’t agree with, it’s okay.
Good to know.

I sure hope the internet’s values don’t undergo too drastic changes so I (or you) wind up the ones exposed.

And yes, I think animal cruelty is bad. But I am not Vegan, just Vegetarian, so I am responsible for a lot of cruelty done to milk cows etc pp.
You should think about whether or not you are in a position to throw the first stone. It’s okay to be shocked and disgusted, but if you are going to act on it, you need to clean up your own act too.

Anonymous

“And yes, I think animal cruelty is bad. But I am not Vegan, just Vegetarian, so I am responsible for a lot of cruelty done to milk cows etc pp.
You should think about whether or not you are in a position to throw the first stone. It’s okay to be shocked and disgusted, but if you are going to act on it, you need to clean up your own act too.”

This is a ridiculous argument routinely used to dissuade action in the simple-minded.

Should a heart surgeon not perform surgeries unless they eat a totally cholesterol-free diet?
- kramski
  
  “Should a heart surgeon not perform surgeries unless they eat a totally cholesterol-free diet?”
  
  Um… huh? Heart surgery is about helping people, not about attacking them. Big difference.

Bionicrat2

Sometimes when you do bad things, bad things happen to you.

Anonymous

If you watch the video closely you can see that she glances at the trash can right after she begins to pet the cat. Then she looks around to see no one is watching and before lifting the trash lid, grabbing it by the scruff of the neck and dropping it in.
As for the “reason” she did this. Well, if you have to ask you really not going to understand it but,
basically she did this because it she derived pleasure from the combination of anonymity and power to cause harm.
Unless she is suffering from a degenerative brain disease my guess is just enjoys being able to “get away with” simply acts of wanton cruelty.

Anonymous

Easy solution, dump her in a trash can and leave her there for a day.

Lets also toss in the idiots who advocate petty cruelty while hiding behind their pathetic, cowardly internet tags.

Phikus

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
You c**t, I’m not a queer
I’ll state my case of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full
And each and every highway
And that, much more than this
I did it my way

Regrets I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
I saw it through without exemption
I’ve planned each charted course
Each careful step along the highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way

There were times,
I’m sure you knew
When there was fuck, fuck
Fuck all else to do
But through it all,
When there was doubt
I shot it up or kicked it out
I faced ‘em all and the world
And did it my way

I’ve loved and been a snide
I’ve had my fill, my share of losing
And now the tears subside
I find it all so amusing
To think, I killed a cat
And might I say not in the die way
Oh no, oh no, not me
I did it my way

For what is a brat,
What has he got
When he wears hats and he cannot
Say the things he truly feels
But only the words
Of one who kneels
The record shows,
I’ve stuffed a bloke
And did it my way

/irony

Anonymous

Normally a crime that causes this much outrage carries jail time and thus protection from vigilante justice. I think the deliberate murder or attempted murder of someone’s pet needs to have some consequences more severe than a fine or some probation.90 days comes to mind as a good minimum if she’s actually mentally ill because she’s obviously at least mostly functional.

Signal30

Heh. Never mess with some dude that sets up a surveillance camera to keep an eye on his car.

k88dad

My thoughts:

This woman has at least one warning sign for being a serial killer. That would make me nervous if I was a neighbor.

Are there leash laws in her community? I know it’s funny to think of (most) cats on a leash, but in my town there is a city ordinance and you can’t let your pets run free. My father humanely traps cats in his garden and gives one warning (note on cat’s collar.) The second offense garners the cat a free ride to the pound.

Chupacabara

“Serial Killer”?

OK. This thread has officially jumped the shark.

Just out of curiosity, what exactly are the “warning sign(s) for being a serial killer”?

Beady Eyes – Check
lopsided grin – Check
Likes sharpening knives – Check
Head cocks from side to side while listening to voices in head – Check
Tosses cat in wheelie bin – Check

mdh

You dawg, I heard you liked a little sadism in your hizzie…

Brett Myers

Stone her!

Anonymous

i’ll take some of the ocelot spleens, please.

.~.
JohnnyOC

I can see where the owners are pissed off and want something done. Understandable. Animal cruelty, esp. to an owner’s pet, needs to be punished.

..but to post something on a social site with her name and address and wait for a mob or some unhinged individual to go to her house and possible kill her for a CAT?!?

I would sue the living pants off of those two. It’s one thing to be pissed. It’s another to take the law into your own hands, try to start up a mob, and, through your actions have the possibility of someone getting hurt or killed.

Hope you like that blood on your hands. You might not of swung the ax but you put her head on the chopping block if anything happens.
- Anonymous
  
  Seems perfectly fine to me. I would do exactly the same.
  
  Though if I knew who it was I would deal with them myself.
  
  I hope she gets hit by a bus.
  
  It’s called karma ;)
- tyger11
  
  You seem to be implying that a human life is worth more than a cat? How odd.
  - JohnnyOC
    
    Are you SERIOUS??
    
    It’s a f#$%king cat.
    
    Again for everyone to hear. It’s only a f$%$king cat.
    
    Unless you are completely innocent and exempt from eating of another animal’s flesh, wearing another animal’s flesh, etc, since you were born honestly you got nothing to say.
    
    We killed thousands if hundreds of thousands of animals a day for thousands of years for our food, clothing, shelter, etc.
    
    I don’t see anyone weeping for Bessie the cow getting slaughtered for Sunday Brunch or getting into a mob since Joe the butcher took Wilbur out back to sell for being a Denny’s special..
    
    but for some stupid and odd reason people are insane about their domesticated pets.
    
    I’ll make it easy. If I was in a car and I suddenly have to swerve around an accident and had the choice between hurting the most lowliest of humankind or killing a cat, you damn well better believe Fluffy would be a pancake.
    
    What she did was wrong and she needs help, but to say I would condone her getting hurt for an animal? You are the odd one out.
    - soongtype
      
      Humans are animals too. Why should we care about humans but not cats?
    - dougr650
      
      All of the people saying “it’s just a cat, get over it” have clearly never had a pet. To a pet owner, the pet is a family member. It is a friend and loved one who can be as close as a child. OK, well maybe cats are more like children who ignore you most of the time and then show up just for dinner. If you think these people are overreacting, you’re just showing that you’re incapable of putting yourself in their mental state. Imagine this woman walking past a small child playing in the yard. She looks around furtively, then picks up the kid and throws him in the trash bin. Now does the outrage make any more sense to you? I guarantee that white-hot fury is exactly what every cat owner is feeling right now.
      
      People who callously commit acts of cruelty against animals or anything else are sociopathic. They are incapable of empathy. They need to be psychologically evaluated and corrected before they have an opportunity to do real harm to someone or something.
      
      Now, I’m not a big fan of cats myself. But this was a near-miss, in my book. She was caught doing something horrific to a living creature and somebody needs to sit down and sort her out before she does it to someone when nobody’s looking. For all we know, she may do this all the time, and it might not be just cats either. Do you really think she just did this on a whim for the first and only time in her life and it just happened to be caught on camera? That seems unlikely. If it turns out this woman has a box full of human skulls in her basement, it would not surprise me in the least. She is a sick individual and the last thing in the world that we need is to just ignore her act and move on.
    - Donald Petersen
      
      Do you really think she just did this on a whim for the first and only time in her life and it just happened to be caught on camera?
      
      .
      
      Well, yes, in fact I do. I acknowledge the possibility of her being a serial cat-binner who was inevitably brought to justice only by the ubiquity of British surveillance cameras (it was only a matter of time, after all), but really, it’s just as possible that she’s never done anything of the sort before. That doesn’t excuse it, though I think it’s likely that most people would find the serial pussy-dumper to be a worse offender than the first-timer.
      
      Here’s a weird story: about 15 years ago, the bass player in my band brought over a drummer fella he’d met (let’s call him “Carlos”) and he jammed with us for an afternoon in my mother-in-law’s garage. The guy was pretty good, and we had a fine old time rocking out. Before he left, he complimented my mother-in-law’s garden, petted the cat, and went on his way. We didn’t jam with him again (after all, I was the usual drummer, so I didn’t figure we needed another one), and I didn’t think about him again until six or eight months later, when Bass Player breathlessly related the News: “Carlos” had been busted for murdering and dismembering his girlfriend. Eventually the rest of the story came out: he’d done it before, and actually did have skulls in his basement, along with other assorted parts. But this particular psycho liked cats just fine. As far as I know, this was the only serial killer I’ve ever met, and my takeaway from the experience is that You Just Never Know.
      
      I have done some bad things in my life. Many times, I’ve been sorely tempted to do even worse things. As it turns out, I refrain from performing the more nefarious deeds, just like most of us do. This form of self-restraint is the very foundation of civilization, and is what elevates us above the animals (if we can be said to be elevated above them at all). But surely you realize how fragile this self-restraint can be. It’s an old stereotype that the frustrated worker comes home in the evening and takes out his aggravation by kicking the dog. This is not right, it is not fair, and these days it’s usually not legal. But the temptation to visit violence upon others, deserved or not, is widespread… ubiquitous, even. To assume that only the potentially homicidal are capable of such outrages is to miss the point that, as a species, the vast majority of us are, under the right circumstances, potentially homicidal.
  - pyster
    
    If you cause needless suffering I appraise your value at less than the what i have to wipe from my shoe from time to time.
- Art Carnage
  
  > I can see where the owners are pissed off and want something done. Understandable. Animal
  > cruelty, esp. to an owner’s pet, needs to be punished.
  >
  > ..but to post something on a social site with her name and address and wait for a mob or
  > some unhinged individual to go to her house and possible kill her for a CAT?!?
  
  Problem is, THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN. They posted on the social site in an effort to FIND OUT who did it. They couldn’t have posted her name and address, because they didn’t know it. No one did, until she called the police.
  - JohnnyOC
    
    Ok. I’m sorry I stand corrected.
    
    So, what you are saying, is they put out an Internet ABP to track her down with like-minded (and pissed off) people instead of letting the authorities handle it.
    
    Yeah, that sounds MUCH better.
    - pixleshifter
      
      It was because of the internet furore that her name is now known to the authorities.
      Without the internet footage and subsequent outrage the authorities would find scant time to follow this case up, considering their refusal to even charge her.
      So yay! Go internet.
      
      And it’s APB, not ABP.
- Anonymous
  
  The couple who posted the TRUTH of this person’s act did nothing wrong.
  
  Don’t want a large segment of the nation pissed at you?
  
  Simple…
  
  DON’T ABUSE ANIMALS.
  
  With the release of this video, and the attendant ANGER, perhaps JERKS like this “person” will think before doing such things. Anger against acts like this? Good.
- Brett Myers
  
  Sorry, that was a “Stone her!” said with irony. If you read the earlier thread, Moderator Antinous was calling for her to be put into a chipper shredder, feet first. Now that she’s been identified and located, the next obvious step is to get Sharia on her ass.
- Art
  
  Holy Jeepers! Am I the only who thinks that this internet thing is getting out of hand?
- dragonfrog
  
  Correction: They did not post her name and address – if they had possessed that information, they would presumably have gone straight to the police with it.
  
  They posted the video, and nothing else. The culprit saw herself, saw the comments, and thought “oh shit – how long until someone I know sees this video and outs me?” and turned herself in.
- arikol
  
  well, some of the web forums asking for blood were boingboing’s own.
  And some of the people calling for torture and murder were boingboing moderators (at least one, Antinous)
  
  And her name was published in the previous boingboing discussion thread about this.
  
  It’s not only /b that can get crazy and insane, boingboing can apparently fall victim to mob lynching mentality as well. Which I find sad. And a bit pathetic. Reminds me a bit of the “she turned me into a newt, burn her, burn her” type of civil justice system which was practiced a few centuries ago.
  
  Call me whatever ill names you choose, but the people calling for blood, torture, murder etc are way worse than this lady. Not saying that her actions were ok or even excusable, but this level of response is just mental.
  - JohnnyOC
    
    Completely agree.
    
    Sometimes getting people in a froth for page hits s has real-life consequences, hopefully it doesn’t end up that way.
    
    I’m not specifically pointing out BB because others are doing it as well, but it looks like it’s getting a little out of hand sometimes.

Rindan

In her defense, it was just a fucking cat. It isn’t like you can’t make more if you really want to.

xcheopis

One can say the same for humans.

Grumblefish

Not justifying the action, but wondering about the motive…

Wonder if she has a vegetable patch which gets regularly dumped on by cats? People can get very possessive of their garden also, and finding it regularly despoiled by someone else’s pet can be irritating. Not a lot that can be achieved by complaining to the neighbours – they’re not going to lock the cat indoors, and telling a cat not to do something is pretty pointless.

hassenpfeffer

I like the BBQ sauce suggestion. If we don’t resume executions by wild animal, how can our empire properly crumble?

Anonymous

Bank Employee, color me shocked

hassenpfeffer

Completely unrelated comment: I’m flashing to the scene in “Notes on a Scandal” where Judi Dench hisses, “Someone’s died!” at Cate Blanchett, that “someone” being poor psycho Judi’s cat.

jimh

Nope, I am NOT deluding myself when I say I would never, ever do something like that. I’m really quite sure about it.

Jesse M.

Nope, I am NOT deluding myself when I say I would never, ever do something like that. I’m really quite sure about it.

I’m sure you wouldn’t do something like that intentionally, but if you think your awareness of your own actions and surroundings is so perfect that you couldn’t possibly do something horrible (like leaving a kid in a locked car) out of inattentiveness under stress, then yeah, I think you’re deluding yourself. Not a moral failing, the human brain is just naturally pretty buggy, any one of us could suffer such a lapse even if the chances are pretty tiny.

cosmorphis

I don’t understand. We will slaughter pigs and eat cows, but stone a woman who puts a cat in a recycle bin.

Anonymous

its the principle. if you put a cow in a trashcan in india they would be just as appauled.
testpattern

And cue vegetarian logic…now!
Ito Kagehisa

We will slaughter pigs and eat cows, but stone a woman who puts a cat in a recycle bin.

She removed an animal from one person’s private property, and dumped it a storage container on another person’s private property. It’s right there on the video. Look at it again, the property lines seem pretty obvious – she’s on the public street, but the cat’s on the neighbor’s wall.

That’s not really apropos to slaughtering your own cows or eating your own pigs on your own property. If people were trying to defend her for doing this to her own cat in her own waste bin, then your comparison would be more meaningful.

I’d be pretty pissed off if she stole my cheeseburger from my windowsill and threw it in my neighbor’s trash. I’d be pissed if she stole my pigs and released them in the neighbor’s dumpster, too (although the pigs would probably like it).
hassenpfeffer

Because it’s a waste of perfectly good cat that could otherwise be turned into chow mein.
PaulR

More to the point:
http://www.rall.com/rallblog/v/Cartoons/7-16-10.jpg.html

(Mind you, that did look like a friendly cat.)

Ari B.

I take it she’s never heard of 4-chan or anonymous before…

xzzy

Cool, I’m gonna have to use that excuse.

“Sorry officer, my dad is in the hospital, that’s why I drop kicked that poodle into a river.”

John Greg

I love the smell of vigilanteism in the morning… The smell, you know that gasoline smell… Smells like, victory.

Anonymous

She must be sent to jail or to a hospital. She is crazy or sick. How can you do something like that ?!

traalfaz

I don’t think the lion pit is fair. I say just do the same to her; toss her into the bottom of a 20-foot-deep plastic pit that she can’t climb out of, sweltering on a summer day, and tell her that sometime in the next day or two the contents of the container will drop into a trash compactor, but maybe someone will hear her yelling and toss in a ladder before then.

Anonymous

One of the warning signs of a serial killer is (pet)animal cruelty. The way she looked around to see if anyone was watching (signaling pre-meditation) shows a really f-ed up mind. .

Daedalus

Meh. Chuck her in a cell for a few days to give her a sense of what it’s like to be confined and unable to escape, and that’s all. She’s still a human being. She doesn’t deserve actual threats. She just needs to realize that what she did was evil and that she was a bad person for doing it, and then we can drop the whole affair.

Anonymous

You’re all completely overreacting. She was simply trying to recycle the cat, so that another family could have an adorable kitten.

blatantdisregard

Yeah, /b/ is all over this. Honestly, this register a “meh” on my personal cruelty scale.

Donald Petersen

Honestly, this register a “meh” on my personal cruelty scale.

To which I would respond: that’s because you have some perspective and sense of proportion when it comes to The Evil That People Do.

The internet is no place for the likes of us.
dragonfrog

This registers a meh on your animal cruelty scale, does it? So you wouldn’t mind being trapped for 15 hours in a hot, stinking dumpster, and then hauled to the dump and incinerated? Or is your human cruelty meter calibrated differently? Or is it just when the cruelty is applied to you personally?

Yes I know the cat was rescued and not incinerated after 15 hours. But that’s coincidence – if the collection truck had come by after 14 hours, not something > 15, she would have succeeded in killing the cat.
- blatantdisregard
  
  Was she trying to kill the cat? Being gently placed in a trash bin does not equal instant death from where I stand. What I’m saying is I’ve seen a lot more heinous animal cruelty, most of it posted on 4chan, the very site calling for this woman’s head. Gain some perspective.
- Snowrunner
  
  Considering what we do to animals and each other on a daily basis all over the world with nobody caring I’d say yeah, that is worth a “meh”. Was it nice? No. Was it something that should be done? No. But there are many worse things you and I don’t care about and are blissfully unaware.
  
  Say, animal transports so that you can get your steak? Or what happens in slaughterhouses. Or people getting raped, killed etc. on a daily basis.
  
  It’s called perspective, charge her with animal cruelty and be done with it, but this moral outrage many people seem to have over this event is utterly hollow me to me.
glimmung

recalibrate it then.
MadMolecule

Honestly, this register a “meh” on my personal cruelty scale.

You do understand that she was trying to kill the cat, right? Would it break the Mendoza line on your animal-cruelty scale if she’d tried to strangle the cat with her hands, but was stopped by a passing do-gooder?

(Also, FWIW, her “I don’t know what came over me” defense is one of the lamest lies I’ve ever heard.)
- Chupacabara
  
  “You do understand that she was trying to kill the cat, right?”
  
  Really?
  
  OK Kreskin, And you know this how?
  
  How about maybe, just maybe… she saw a bunch of local kids tying cans to cats tails and she thought this was such a friendly cat that she wanted to prevent it being victimized, so she put it in the wheelie bin, for it’s own safety, with intentions to return in a few moments to release it and try and find it’s owner. Unfortunately, when she got home to change, she received some bad news about her father and the cat completely slipped her mind…
  
  Now MY B.S. version of things is just as plausible as you stating with no reservation, that this womans SOLE INTENT was to “KILL the cat.”
  
  Nice to see you got your torch lit and your pitchfork out.
  - MadMolecule
    
    OK Kreskin, And you know this how?
    
    Because I watched the video, of course. Whether or not her actual desire was to kill the cat, she performed an intentional action which, she knew, would certainly have been fatal to the cat if not for someone else’s intervention. This is also called “trying to kill a cat.”
    
    As for this:
    
    Nice to see you got your torch lit and your pitchfork out.
    
    Nice to see you’ve got your knee-jerk ready. I said nothing advocating punishment or retaliation of any kind. Nor am I in favor of such, except in court.
    - Chupacabara
      
      So in other words… If my kid says he is hungry, and I say “We’ll eat in a bit”… I am, by your reasoning, trying to KILL my kid. Right?
      
      I mean, if I wait a “Bit” too long, Junior may starve to death.
      
      So by choosing to “Wait a bit” I am doing a conscious act that will eventually lead to death, unless something or someone else intervenes.
      
      Please…
    - MadMolecule
      
      So in other words… If my kid says he is hungry, and I say “We’ll eat in a bit”… I am, by your reasoning, trying to KILL my kid. Right?
      
      You can’t possibly think that’s what I’m saying.
    - Chupacabara
      
      You are saying that you can tell her INTENT by watching the video.
      
      I am saying that is silly.
    - MadMolecule
      
      I very specifically did NOT say that she intended to kill the cat. I said she intentionally put the cat in the trash can. I am also saying that she knew or should have known that putting the cat in the trash can was likely to kill it. Whether killing the cat was her objective or not, this combination of action and knowledge constitutes an attempt to kill the cat.
      
      Imagine hiding a landmine under your neighbor’s doormat. No matter what your reason for putting it there was, it’s hard to argue that that’s an attempt to kill your neighbor.
      
      As the Model Penal Code puts it:
      
      Under the Model Penal Code, a defendant is generally guilty of attempt in one of two situations: (1) when it was their purpose (i.e., conscious object) to engage in the conduct, or to cause the result, which constitutes the target offense, or (2) when they believe the result implicated in the target offense will occur, even if not their conscious object to cause that result.
    - Brett Myers
      
      The problem with your argument, MadMolecule, is that the cat didn’t die. Even after 15 HOURS in the bin. Putting the cat in the bin was NOT likely to kill it or it would be dead. If one can judge from the pictures accompanying the article (and, let’s face it, all we can do here is judge from the pictures), the cat appears perfect fit and healthy. If the woman is from the neighborhood, she likely knows the trash pick up schedules. If she intended anything by the act, it’s likely she intended to send a message to the loose cat’s owner, knowing that a few hours in the bin wouldn’t really do it any harm.
      
      There is no comparison with putting a land mine (seriously, that’s a ridiculous comparison) under your neighbors doormat. At the very minimum, it would cause serious property damage and grievous injury to your neighbor. That’s what landmines do. Trash bins just sit there until someone opens the lid. It’s a big harmless plastic tub. 15 HOURS and the worst thing that happened was the cat was frightened and needed a bath.
    - Chupacabara
      
      Lemme get this straight.
      
      Your initial post reads, and I quote -
      “You do understand that she was trying to kill the cat, right?”
      
      And now you are saying, and again I quote -
      “I very specifically did NOT say that she intended to kill the cat. I said she intentionally put the cat in the trash can.”
      
      Yep. Your arguments are as clear as mud.
      
      Damn Interwebz…
      
      Maybe I would do better if when I had read your post I magically read what you INTENDED to write, rather than what you ACTUALLY wrote.
      
      Much in the same way you can clearly state this woman “Intended to kill the cat”.
      
      It’s so obvious now.
    - SaltySamaritan
      
      you dont give enough credit to the cat, there is a reason they have nine lives and always land on there feet. it takes lots more than being dumped into a trash truck to kill a cat.

Anonymous

Dump her in the Kruger Park, and leave her to the Lions.

l0g1c

Hey, look at that. Someone being held accountable for something they thought they did anonymously. Ha! Ha! *points finger*

MsLeading

…and her arrest for animal cruelty is coming when?

Nowhere does it say they posted her address on the Facebook page, they simply posted the security video, which is public record. That’s hardly inciting a mob.

If this poor, poor women doesn’t want to be the target of rage from animal lovers, she probably shouldn’t torture animals. Simple enough.

Anonymous

Only suspected? I did watch a video, right?

daneyul

The guard was put in place as her mum Celia claimed her daughter actually LOVES cats â€” and doesn’t know what came over her.

She said: “Her father Maurice is hospital in the moment and is very ill. I think she was just in a world of her own. We all are at the moment.

“Mary said she just didn’t know what possessed her, or what came over her, it’s just very strange because she cannot explain her actions at all.

“We’re all living on edge at moment, she doesn’t know what happened.

Dammit, I’m starting to have sympathy for her…if she really has no history of cruelty, and is in mental distress, then maybe it was some kind of fugue state or other similar psychological reaction. If she really has been a cat lover her whole life, with no evidence to say otherwise, then the internet needs to stand down.

mellowknees

because no one ever lies when confronted with something stupid and/or cruel that they did. Family members of convicted murderers often tell the media “He didn’t do it. He’s such a gentle person!”

While I agree with most folks here that this isn’t the cruelest thing on the planet, I also happen to believe that cruelty to innocent creatures ranks pretty high on my “that’s fucked up” scale.

She may not have killed the cat directly, but if the owner hadn’t found it 15 hours after she dumped it, it’s likely it either would have died in the bin or died when the recycling truck came along.

Imagine what people would be saying if a teenage boy had been the one who did it. Isn’t cruelty to animals often a precursor for violent behavior against humans later in life?

Hanglyman

While I hope she doesn’t actually get hurt, I have to kind of sheepishly admit that I find it immensely satisfying knowing that there were actual consequences for what she did.

I don’t condone vigilante justice, let alone violent mobs, but animal cruelty laws are way too lenient, and it’s nice to know she’ll at least get a good scare for what she’s done, even if the source of that scare isn’t the law like it should be.

Anonymous

All of a sudden, BoingBoing’s readership loves video surveillance cameras…

what a strange case though!

Anonymous

.. and what if there had been glass or other sharp objects at the bottom of the bin?

However, I don’t wish the woman any physical harm, I’m sure the ‘publicity’ alone will prevent her from swatting so much as a fly in future.

loosethoughts

Ummm. I don’t think she should die. I would like the cops to stand guard over her 24/7….. in jail!!!!

She’s in jail right??? She threw a frigging cat into the garbage!!! Does London have animal abuse laws??

If they don’t then Mob justice is sounding pretty sweet right now… Where is that retarded UK Minister now??

social_maladroit

To be serious for just a moment: (1) That woman’s dumping that poor cat surreptitiously in a bin indicates she’s got mental problems. (2) Anyone who sees the video and gets so mad they make death threats against her may have mental problems and at least needs to get a life. (3) In the grand scheme of things, although cats are living beings, human lives are indeed “worth” more than cats’ lives, for obvious reasons.

ryanrafferty

She really just belongs in a mental hospital, she clearly has some issues.

arikol

yes, she clearly has some issues. If not a mental hospital, then at least therapy or possibly an old peoples home. Dementia? I dunno, couldn’t diagnose it even if I had all the facts. Healthy mind? Probably not.

nutbastard

When are people going to stop being so screwed up?

Cats are recyclables depending on the breed, otherwise, yard waste. I’m tired of having our landfills needlessly packed full of things that don’t belong there. But I guess *some* people can’t be bothered to do the right thing.

Donald Petersen

otherwise, yard waste

I gotta admit, the last time I had to shovel up a flattened squirrel from my driveway, I agonized for a good ten minutes about which bin to toss it in.

I think I finally decided the regular household trash one. Desiccated roadkill frisbee seems like a better fit for the landfill than to end up in the mulch, I guess. Wonder if I guessed right?

Anonymous

she and husband should have to work 3,000 hours in the animal shelters…

arikol

I favour putting a cat in her house. That way, when some genius member of /b burns her house down (probably killing everyone within) /b and boingboing can gang up on the arsonist for having burned a cat.

or something..

At least as reasonable as all the torture and murder fantasies some posters have been spurting out of their half flaccid… minds.

xcheopis

“I favour putting a cat in her house. That way, when some genius member of /b burns her house down (probably killing everyone within) /b and boingboing can gang up on the arsonist for having burned a cat.”

So you’re hoping for the particularly hideous death of an innocent so you can gain internet points? Nice. Do you also call for harming/killing children when their parents irritate you?
- arikol
  
  Wow, way to take one of my 15 or so comments on the matter (this thread and previous thread) without context. Read some of my previous comments for illumination on my stand on this (self-righteous as those comments may be).
  
  Sure, I should have done a comment around that for the simpletons, but I really counted on the majority of BB to be smarter than that. I did know that there would be at least one reader with impaired mental facilities, though.

knoxblox

Well, I was gonna use an Atticus Finch quote, but it doesn’t quite work because the lady probably equates cats with blue jays instead of mockingbirds.

Anonymous

Won’t *someone* think of the sociopaths???!!!

Woman suspected of dumping cat in trash can under police protection

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