Posted on 06/16/2007 2:54:12 PM PDT by lowbridge
Tiny kitten saved from cruel death on railroad
Web Posted: 06/14/2007 11:26 PM CDT
Brian Chasnoff Express-News
The calico kitten was ridden with fleas and so scrawny you could see its backbone.
Yet the animal was in far better shape Thursday morning than it had been several hours earlier, when two off-duty security guards on a secluded South Side road saw a man and a woman tying the creature to some railroad tracks with a shoelace, a police report said.
Tracks is the name given to the kitten rescued after someone tied the animal to railroad tracks on the South Side.
The couple got away, but the kitten, christened Tracks, got a temporary home with one of its rescuers.
"We're trying to make it fat," said John Hernandez, 22, feeding the skeletal weeks-old feline a second can of beef and gravy.
Police are investigating the case as one of deadly conduct because Hernandez and the other guard, Jacob Salinas, said the man pointed a gun at them.
The city also could assign an animal cruelty officer to the case if the San Antonio Police Department requests that measure, said Lisa Norwood, spokeswoman for Animal Care Services.
The rescuers gave police a license plate number, but no one had been arrested Thursday.
The strange case comes on the heels of tougher animal-cruelty laws passed this year by Texas lawmakers.
House Bill 2328 would allow pet owners to be punished for cruelly and seriously injuring their animals and extends protection to stray dogs and cats, defining cruelty as something that "causes or permits unjustified or unwarranted pain or suffering."
Cruising near the intersection of Shane and Villamain about 3 a.m., Hernandez and Salinas noticed a young man and a young woman standing over the Union Pacific railroad tracks, a police report said. The friends felt something was wrong and doubled back. The couple still were there, and they noticed a kitten in the woman's hand.
"They knew we were watching them," Hernandez said.
So Hernandez switched off the headlights on his pickup and parked nearby. That's when he and Salinas saw the man pull out the shoelace.
"It was disgusting, really, seeing someone tie a kitten to the tracks," Salinas said, "just for the joy of seeing it get run over."
The couple got into a green Saturn and pulled away. Hernandez drove closer and killed his engine. Silence. Then the high-pitched cry of the kitten. It was upside-down, its back legs bound to the tracks with a shoelace, he said.
Hernandez and Salinas untied the creature, got back in the pickup and called police. They caught up to the Saturn and recorded the license plate number but backed off when the man stopped the car, retrieved a gun from the trunk and pointed it at them, Hernandez and Salinas said.
Hernandez said he's not sure if he'll adopt Tracks for good. He's mulling giving the kitten to his sister or his girlfriend. But he has some advice for whoever would tie a kitten to railroad tracks.
"Go to a mental institution," Hernandez said, "and see what's wrong with your brain."
How the hell could anyone do anything like that to an innocent life?!
PURR PING
Shouldnt be long before the cops catch up with this slime.
Sorry to be crude, but it looks like they are feeding the cat on a grill???
Hope they catch those 2. Animal cruelty like this is often a prelude to doing the same to humans. In any case they need some serious “counseling”.
Some people are disgusting, even if animals aren’t people, humans have a duty to be stewards of this planet. Wanton killing of animals in such a way is obviously bad.
OK it looks like a pick up truck bed. Sorry.
viking kitty ping
"Trax" would be a cooler name. "X" beats "ck" any day of the week.
I hope baby Trax gets fat.
Planned Parenthood was closed for the day.
By holding a disdain for innocence.
Kind of them to rescue the little thing. Kudos to those guards.
You can guess what I'd like to see happen to that couple if they catch them.
or the corrugated bed of a pickup truck.
I say tie the two of them down to the tracks with a train coming, and then remove them at the last possible second before hauling them off to jail.
I’m sure she will.
I can think of an appropriate punishment for the perps in about one second, but I wouldn’t want to clean it up. BIGTIME cat person here.
I just lost my youngest baby kitty (10), last week to lung cancer. And to see someone do this to a poor creature just sicknens me so.
The same way they can terminate an unborn child....
Liberals have no brain, and even less heart....
The worthless bastard was ready to put teeth in his evil act by threating human life with deadly force.
Thanks be to the brave men who saved a helpless life.
And I hope those evil scum aren’t taken alive!
EITHER OF THEM!
):^(
Kitten gets even!
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