Posted on 08/26/2007 7:15:48 AM PDT by LibWhacker
CINCINNATI, Aug. 24 A 10-year-old boy who said he hated snakes killed a 10-foot python at petting zoo by stomping on the reptile's head.
Scott Braunstein, a reptile handler who brought the snake to the St. Bernadette Festival in Amelia, Ohio, last weekend, said he was shocked by the boy's violence, The Cincinnati Enquirer said Thursday.
The snake, named Popcorn, was a non-poisonous albino Burmese python.
Braunstein, who operates House of Reptiles in Dry Ridge, Ky., said the boy approached him and told him that he hated snakes. The child then raised his leg and stomped down on the snake's head, Braunstein said.
A man believed to be the boy's father grabbed the child and said, "This is why I don't take you anywhere," before disappearing into the crowd, the newspaper said.
"I have never, never had anything like that happen," Braunstein told the newspaper.
My friend's mother answered the door, out of breath, and said she just killed a snake.
She accepted my offer to go throw it out back in the woods.
(Black snake 3 or 4 feet long)
It was the housewife in the basement with a shovel....
No lie,
It was only back at the first of the month when the cop shot at a snake and killed the little boy in OK. guess some of the dirt bags on this thread want to charge the cop for animal cruelty.
I disagree both because of the context and what the grandfather said. This was neither a fear response nor was it, because of being at a public zoo, a place where ordinary bored boy viciousness would be done.
This was a premeditated act, in front of witnesses, and with “callous indifference” to what anybody thought. And because of his grandfather’s comment, I suspect that this boy is a psychopath, and a dangerous one.
The vast majority of psychopaths are not generally dangerous, based on their level of self-control. They are incapable of sympathizing or empathizing with other people, but they can rationally determine that certain behaviors or actions are not acceptable, and choose to refrain from doing them.
However, a dangerous psychopath also has little or no impulse control and cannot distinguish differences or degrees in context for their actions.
If they see a woman wearing a hat they don’t like, they will snatch it from her head and destroy it on the spot, not caring what her response is, if they are by themselves or in a crowd of people staring at them, or if they are in the middle of a church service or standing in front of a policeman.
Importantly, this may or may not carry over to their actions after their impulse. They may automatically deny having done what they just did, or they may accuse someone else of having made them do it, or any number of behaviors.
In the final analysis, this boy needs to be examined, and carefully. He may be one of the few who are so aberrant that they need to be institutionalized for life, being a clear and present danger to others.
You ARE kidding....right?
You never watched the little rascals when you were growing up did you? Sounds to me like your the one who needs to be checked out.
This was a snake that was someon’e PROPERTY...not a loose snake in a backyard! I do hope you are smart enough to know the difference...are you?
good grief
Doesn’t the fact that he walked up to a complete stranger, stated that he hated snakes, and then killed it in front of many witnesses show you that he lacks total self control and insight into the feelings of others?
Aren’t zoo’s funded (partially) by taxes? If so, the dad (and everyone else) probably already paid for the snake.
Remedial reading is in order. This was not a real zoo, it was a petting zoo set up for the event. Question is why would some one bring a snake to a petting zoo, where you normal have fuzzy warm baby animals, something the stupid snake would look at as lunch. You don't teach little kids to pet dangerous animals. If a kid at the zoo pets the snake then goes home and picks up a snake that bits and kills him do you then get to sue the snake handler.
Shawn B****y killed animals for fun: stomped on dogs, swung cats by their tails, snapped frogs under windshield wipers, etc. Large for his age, he also tormented all of the other kids in the neighborhood. His confrontational family blamed everyone else for his problems, the mother often screamed at everyone else’s kids, and the father tried to chest-bump anyone smaller than his short stature.
He was so bad that he rode a short bus.
His short bus took him to “farm school.”
The “farm school” was supposed to teach him that other creatures had value.
I have googled the name of this boy (now a man) occasionally—trying to find out whom he’d murdered by now. I figure that he must be dead because I could find no mention of him.
I am not saying send him to a shrink, what I am saying is, that he has the makings of being a serail killer later on in life is something isn’t done quick. A good a** whooping and strict homelife might do the trick.
Brilliantly put.
A snake at a petting zoo. I would never pet a snake.
You must have missed the part about stomping on the snake’s HEAD.
Good thing. It’d be kind of hard to do anyway with your skin rot.
I guess that's not on report cards anymore.
He should be punished (asswhooping does sound appropriate), but that serial killer comment is utterly ridiculous. You are overreacting bigtime. It’s a freakin snake. When he starts poisoning grandpa, call me.
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