Sing Sing guard gets year in jail for killing 5 kittens

News Radio 88 ^ | 3/22/02

[areafiftyone]

White Plains, New York-AP) -- A former prison guard who killed five kittens in a trash compactor at Sing Sing has been sentenced to a year in jail. A judge said the crime was ``so offensive and so calculated and so gratuitously cruel it diminishes the humanity of everybody.''

Forty-eight-year-old Ronald Hunlock had been convicted of aggravated cruelty to animals. Last March he found an inmate with contraband at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining. He then searched the inmate's cell, found five newborn kittens and their mother and told the inmate to put them in the compactor. The inmate refused, so Hunlock did it himself.

The mother cat escaped but the kittens were crushed. Defense attorney Daniel Gallivan had asked the judge not to impose jail time, and said Hunlock thought the cats were ill and had no other recourse.

[areafiftyone]

The Inmate was more humane than the prison guard!

[cactmh]

So true. What an animal. (I wonder what the inmate was in for?)

[Behind Liberal Lines]

You know, if saw something like this in a movie like "the Shawshank Redemption" or "the Green Mile," I'd shake my head and silently mock the creators for coming up with something this over the top.

I guess I owe Stephen King, et al, an advance apology.

You have to wonder how this guard disciplines his kids at home.

[John O]

Technically he should be charged for theft of another's property. Unless of course the cats did not really belong to the inmate and ownership cannot be assigned to anyone. In which case the guard can claim them as his own and as his property he can do what he wishes with them.

In any event I think 1 year is pretty excessive. Restitution in cases of theft of this type works better.

Pretty poor way of disposing of excess property but you can't expect everyone to be good stewards.

God Save America (Please)

[lsee]

had no other recourse.

Of course he had other options...one telephone call and someone would have come to pick the cat and kittens up...he was probably trying to cover his lapse that allowed the inmate access to the cat in the first place. Destroy the evidence.

[MotleyGirl70]

I just went through this on another thread, except is was a women starving dogs to death.

Urrgggg. Even more mad now.

What gives with people wanting to hurt animals? I just don't get it.

[GB]

As a cat owner who was sickened by this story when I saw it ... this has nothing to do with prisoners' rights, it has to do with abject cruelty and a lack of common decency and humanity ... I think the best way to deal with this cretin would be to strap him down in a room and smear him with catnip, female cat essence and sardine paste and turn loose a couple dozen horny and hungry felines, preferably the variety that lives in alleys. That would be fitting justice.

[Sangamon Kid]

``so offensive and so calculated and so gratuitously cruel it diminishes the humanity of everybody.''

Give me a break! Yeah, it might have been cruel, but to send the guy up for a year when thousands of baby killers get off scott free shows the pathetic moral climate of our society.

Wake up folks! It was a litter of kittens, not someone's child.

[SarahW]

He wasn't charged with a property crime, idiot, he was charged with cruelty to animals. I guess you figure there is no such thing. Glad not to know you.

[MotleyGirl70]

PEOPLE ARE SICK, SICK, SICK.

[SarahW]

I think he probably would have gotten more than a year if he'd dropped the inmate's sick baby into a trash compactor. Geez, aren't you the same guy who said it was cruel baby killing to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg, a creature lacking the brain, heart, and nerve-endings of a kitten? If that act is cruelty, this certainly is.

[Savage Beast]

Wake up, Sangamon. It was wanton cruelty.

[MotleyGirl70]

I was sent this little cutie via email from a friend. I have had him as my Wallpaper at work. He's now on my FR Profile Page.

[monday]

"I think the best way to deal with this cretin would be to strap him down in a room and smear him with catnip, female cat essence and sardine paste and turn loose a couple dozen horny and hungry felines, preferably the variety that lives in alleys. That would be fitting justice. "

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! You should be a judge. Thats some creative sentencing.

[steve-b]

Sounds like more confirmation for G. Gordon Liddy's opinion of prison guards.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Too bad the guard didn't rape some poor 16 year old girl....he would have only recieved probabtion.

[steve-b]

Actually, in addition to the aggrivated cruelty of animals, he should have been charged with making a terroristic threat -- this depraved act was obviously meant to convey a willingness to kill anyone and anything on the slightest provocation.

[mutchdutch]

After having just gone through an orientation for prison staff I can understand a little why this happened. You are trained to not trust the prisoners. If you let down your guard you and others might die. Not all prisoners are rational people and you would become very "hard" if you are doing your job right in prison with lifers. Many prisoners are playing games and they have a lot of time to think of games to play. Would be tough to balance this hardness with humaness.

On the other hand, some prisoners are changing. ANOTHER CASE WHERE WE ARE MISSING A LOT OF INFORMATION ON THE STORY.....but it doesn't stop us from making assumptions and comments.

I attended as a part of INNERCHANGE FREEDOM INITIATIVE (a part of chuck colsen's ministry). We are encouraged to form relationship with the prisoners but needed to understand why the guards acted the way the do.

[sockmonkey]

This reminded me of when I worked at the State Hospital here. One day when I took my patients fishing,we found a little fawn who had gotten stuck in the mud on the bank, and was very dehydrated from trying to struggle free.
We extricated the fawn, wrapped it in a blanket, and spirited it back into the ward..the patients cleaned it up, the head nurse pretended she didn't notice anything unusual, and I called a local vet who picked it up for us to try to nurse it back to health.