Churchill Is Covered in Paint and Burned in the Neck by a Gang of Juveniles in Yet Still Another Outrageous Assault Upon a Defenseless Cat in Reading

Churchill and His Horribly Burned Neck

"The closer she (the Good Samaritan) got, she saw the cat was spray-painted purple and saw an injury on its neck. It was a very open wound."

-- Nan Parks of the Animal Rescue League of Berks County

It is a debatable point as to whether it is adults or juveniles who commit the worst offenses against cats and kittens. The same likewise can be said for the immense joy that both groups derive from their lawlessness.

The only tangible difference that distinguishes the two aggregates is that adult abusers and killers, such as ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and environmentalists, feel compelled to manufacture all sorts of highfalutin balderdash and outright lies in order to camouflage their true motivations. (See Cat Defender posts of May 18, 2013, June 27, 2008, and April 4, 2017 entitled, respectively, "Ted Williams and the National Audubon Society Issue a Call for Cats to Be Poisoned with Tylenol® and Then Try to Lie Out of It," "The United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Navy Hatch a Diabolical Plan to Gun Down Two-Hundred Cats on San Nicolas Island," and "A Mass Murderer of Cats, Entrepreneur, Medicine Man, and Artist Are Just a Few of the Many Hats That Are Worn by a 'Hands-On Environmentalist' on Kangaroo Island.")

Juvenile cat abusers, on the other hand, spare the public from having to listen to any exculpatory nonsense and instead simply glory to the hilt in their abject cruelty and wickedness. A rather poignant example of how that they think and behave occurred on April 9th when a group of them either trapped or somehow cornered a two-year-old gray cat subsequently dubbed Churchill in Essick Park on Church Street in Reading, one-hundred-five kilometers northwest of Philadelphia.

Once they had him at their mercy, these pint-sized devils methodically proceeded to spray-paint him purple and to burn a three to four-inch gash in the left side of his neck. It is not known precisely how that the latter injury was inflicted, but it could have been done with either a cigarette lighter or a propane torch.

There really is not any way of knowing either what other forms of cruel and inhumane punishment that they had in store for Churchill or even if he ever would have made it out of that wretched park alive if an unidentified Good Samaritan had not arrived upon the scene in the nick of time. What transpired next is far from clear, but these cowardly monsters apparently vamoosed at the very sight of the woman.

"The closer she got, she saw the cat was spray-painted purple and saw an injury on its neck," Nan Parks of the Animal Rescue League of Berks County (ARLBC) later told WFMZ-TV of Allentown on April 19th. (See "Cat Spray-Painted, Set on Fire in Reading.") "It was a very open wound."

She immediately scooped up Churchill and transported him to the ARLBC's shelter at 58 Kennel Road in Birdsboro, thirteen kilometers southeast of Reading, where she then abandoned him at the facility's stray animal building. She was thoughtful enough, however, to leave a note with him detailing the location and circumstances under which she had found him.

Since press reports have not divulged exactly when Churchill was assaulted, it is not possible to pinpoint when that the Good Samaritan arrived with him at the ARLBC's shelter. Nevertheless, given that is only open from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. on a Sunday coupled with the fact that she was forced to leave a note, the assumption, correctly or incorrectly, is that Churchill was left unattended.

It likewise never has been explained why that she chose the ARLBC over the Humane Society of Berks County (HSBC) which, at 1801 North Street in Reading, was only 2.73 kilometers, or about an eight minute drive, north of Church Street as opposed to the sixteen minutes that it took her to cover the 8.69 kilometers that separate Church Street from Kennel Road. The latter also is open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on a Sunday but Humane Veterinary Hospitals Reading (HVHR), located next door, is only open Monday through Saturday. It thus would appear that cats who are either injured or become sick on a Sunday are out of luck in Reading.

It accordingly is entirely possible that Churchill was forced to go without treatment until the following day and during such a long interval he easily could have died from an infection or lost his eyesight. Even as things eventually turned out, the pain and torment that he was forced to live with were bad enough.

Once staffers at the ARLBC belatedly got around to treating him, they discovered that in addition to the ugly gash in his neck, he also was suffering from a foggy eye and an untreated ulcer. No details of the type of care that he received have been divulged but staffers apparently were able to shampoo the paint out of his fur because he does not appear to have been shaven in photographs of him that later were released to the press.

His eyes likely were flushed with water and treated with medicated drops whereas the wound to his neck had to be cleansed, medicated, and bandaged. Afterwards he in all probability was administered antibiotics, painkillers, and fitted with an Elizabethan collar.

Hopefully, the veterinarians were able to have saved his eyesight and his neck should heal in time. Even so, his recuperation is expected to take several months and that admission thinly suggests that his injuries may have been even more severe than the ARLBC has been willing to publicly acknowledge.

He was placed in foster care on April 14th with one of the charity's volunteers and is said to be adjusting as well as possible to his new surroundings. "He's definitely been through the ringer for his young age, but he's a sweetheart; a super-great cat," ARLBC's shelter manager Sarah McKillip testified to the Reading Eagle on April 20th. (See "Cat Spray-Painted, Suffers Burns in Reading.") "For everything he's been through, he has every right to hate mankind. But he doesn't."

Even individuals who work with them on a daily basis, such as McKillip, always seen to be surprised by cats' total lack of malice and that in itself tends to suggest that they fail to fully appreciate them. First of all, cats are not people; in fact, they are far superior to them. Secondly, there simply is not any way that any of them ever could get even with a monster as vile as man so holding grudges would be a waste of time and cats are smart enough to realize that.

Given Churchill's friendly nature, he likely at some point previously had a guardian in Reading but, for whatever reason, that individual has not attempted to reclaim him. While it is always conceivable that an unwillingness to pony up for his veterinary care could very well be at the heart of that utterly shameful abdication of moral responsibility, it also is possible that one or more of his attackers were family members.

Press reports have not broached the subject of whether he was wearing a collar or had been microchipped but the inference is that neither were the case. It likewise has not been disclosed if he had been sterilized.

His right ear does not appear to have been mutilated and that, in most instances, forecloses the notion that he could have belonged to a managed TNR colony. Consequently, not only is his past a mystery but also how that he wound up in Essick Park.

The ARLBC claims to have interviewed several potential witnesses in the area surrounding the park but that, as far as it is known, constitutes the sum total of the effort that it has invested in attempting to bring those responsible for attacking Churchill to justice. Accordingly, no arrest has been made and none is expected.

Instead, the public has been treated to the customary outpouring of crocodile tears and expressions of moral outrage. "We'll do everything we can to stop (abuse), but somebody has to speak up," McKillip pontificated to the Reading Eagle. "Every time when you think you've seen it all, you're wrong."

Whereas there is not any doubting the veracity of her last statement, she is living in a dream world if she truly expects the public to do the ARLBC's and the Reading Police Department's jobs for them. Besides it being outrageous of her to fob off responsibility for enforcing the anti-cruelty statutes onto ordinary citizens, they are not about to take up that gauntlet in a million years.

Besides, they do not possess either the expertise, resources, or the authority to investigate crimes of this nature and thus to make arrests. Only humane groups and the police are equipped to do that but neither of them have much interest in doing so.

Churchill Is Facing a Lengthy Recuperation Period in Foster Care

Her colleague, Parks, was equally long on the rhetoric but disturbingly short on action. "This is something that is wrong," she declared to WFMZ-TV. "It's inhumane and we really want justice for Churchill."

Even in uttering those sentiments, she has grotesquely understated the magnitude of the problem that exists in Reading. For example, earlier on April 4th a brown, one-year-old cat named Miracle Maisy barely escaped with her life after she was doused with petrol and thrown out with the trash. (See Cat Defender post of May 12, 2017 entitled "Miracle Maisy Is Bound and Tied, Soaked in Petrol, Sealed Up in a Plastic Bag, and Then Run Through a Trash Compactor but, Amazingly, Is Still Alive Thanks to a Pair of Compassionate Garbagemen.")

Furthermore, it is not only cats are being preyed upon in Reading but dogs as well. For instance, a Chihuahua dubbed Lady Luck was plucked from a garbage can in the 1000 block of Penn Street on April 19th. Like Maisy, she since then has been placed in a new home.

Clearly, there is a lot that is rotten in Reading but given the intransigence of both the law enforcement community and humane groups, those individuals and organizations that truly care about cats need to seriously consider new approaches to this age-old dilemma. One option would be to hire private dicks in order to investigate cases of animal cruelty.

Fully cognizant of the futility of relying upon the authorities to investigate such cases, a number of private individuals already have turned to these professionals but the results have been mixed. The principal drawback is that even when gumshoes are able to locate and identify cat killers that, quite often, is still not sufficient in order to persuade the police and humane groups to make arrests. (See Cat Defender post of April 2, 2015 entitled "Cornishman Shells Out £10,000 on Private Peepers in Order to Track Down Farah's Killer but Once Again Gets Stiffed by Both the Police and the RSPCA.")

A second alternative would be for rescue groups to recruit and train volunteers to do this long-neglected job. Just the mere presence alone of an army of dedicated volunteers prowling the streets for cat abusers might be sufficient in itself in order to deter some would-be abusers.

Merely accepting cruelty to cats as an unalterable fact of life should not be an option but that is precisely the position that the ARLBC has adopted in regard to what was done to Churchill. "You're never happy to see abuse, you're never happy to see these things go on, and it breaks your heart to see it," McKillip philosophized to the Reading Eagle. "But at least he's with us, and I knew he'd be okay."

That is not necessarily the case in that one day he is going to leave foster care and then he will be subject to same dangers as before. Consequently, temporarily safeguarding the life of a solitary cat is tantamount to using chewing gum to stop up a gaping hole in a ship the size of the Titanic.

The objective should be to ensure the safety and well-being of all cats at all times and in order to do so it is paramount that abusers and killers be apprehended and severely punished. Anyone or group that is unwilling to commit the time, effort, and resources that are required in order to transform that worthy goal into a reality might just as well shut up and thus spare the world from having to listen to their phony-baloney excuses.

If that were the whole story it would be bad enough in its own right, but many humane organizations exploit acts of cruelty as a means of raising cash for other activities. Whereas it is readily acknowledged that all of these cash-strapped organizations desperately need money for, inter alia, veterinary care, adoption services, and general operating expenses, there nonetheless is something inherently dishonest about accepting money under false pretenses.

Even if humane groups somehow could be prevailed upon to take cruelty to cats seriously, that would constitute merely the first baby step on a long and difficult road toward holding their attackers accountable under the law. That is because district attorneys do not have any interest whatsoever in prosecuting animal cruelty cases, juries refuse to convict, and even when they do judges will not punish the guilty.

Given that is the case with adult offenders, it is even more so the norm with juveniles who are permitted by societies all over the world to injure and kill cats with impunity. In furtherance of sating their perverse desires, they have appropriated for their use practically every known means of killing cats imaginable.

First of all, they simply adore setting them ablaze. (See Cat Defender posts of September 23, 2005, October 5, 2006, and July 12, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Two New Zealand Teens Douse Three Caged Cats with Glue and Burn Them to Death," "New Jersey Teens' Idea of Fun: Beat Up a Defenseless Kitten and Then Burn It to Death," and "Burned Nearly to Death by Laughing Teenage Girls, Two-Month-Old Kitten Named Adam Is Fighting for His Life in Santa Rosa.")

Closely associated with burning cats and kittens to death, juveniles also get a big kick out of attaching firecrackers to their tiny bodies and then lighting the fuses. (See Cat Defender post of November 30, 2006 entitled "Yobs Celebrating Guy Fawkes Day Kill Twelve-Year-Old Cat Named Tigger with Fireworks; Cat Named Sid Is Severely Burned.")

Crossbows are another of their favorite weapons. (See Cat Defender post of December 18, 2009 entitled "Teenage Wino Who Gunned Down Her Neighbor's Cat, Trouble, with a Crossbow from Her Bedroom Window Cheats Justice.")

They also drown cats. (See Cat Defender post of October 2, 2008 entitled "Sixteen-Year-Old London Girl Is Finally Arrested in the Horrific Drowning Death of Kilo from the HMS Belfast.")

The siccing of large, vicious dogs on cats and kittens is another of their delights. (See Cat Defender post of March 24, 2010 entitled "Seven-Month-Old Bailey Is Fed to a Lurcher by a Group of Sadistic Teens in Search of Cheap Thrills in Northern Ireland.")

They even bind cats with tape and beat kittens to death with sticks. (See Cat Defender post of November 25, 2015 entitled "A Cruel Teenage Drunkard and Dope Addict Who Bound a Cat and a Dog with Tape Before Killing Them Is Let Off Easy by a Calgary Court" and the Belfast Telegraph, August 17, 2013, "Anger over Council and Police 'Inaction' as Children Torture and Kill Kittens.")

Their preferred choice of weapons are, however, air guns. (See Cat Defender post of May 7, 2007 entitled "British Punks Are Having a Field Day Maiming Cats with Air Guns but the Peelers Continue to Look the Other Way.")

On those rare occasions when they get bored with sticking it to cats, they train their bottomless fountain of evil upon other animals and, especially, homeless men. Since societies do not have any more regard for those two groups than they do for cats, juveniles are likewise allowed to assault them with impunity.

Those individuals responsible for that litany of crimes as well as those who so hideously abused Churchill should be treated as adults under the law and dealt with accordingly. That is not about to happen, however; instead, they are allowed to remain free and to grow into adults where they commit even more dastardly crimes against both cats and society at large.

Even damaged as he is, Churchill is awfully lucky to still be alive but if something is not done soon in order to make Reading a far safer city for cats, he may not be able to stay that way for much longer. The same holds true for countless other felines who sans doute are being abused, maimed, and killed but whose plights never have seen so much as the light of day.

Photos: Animal Rescue League of Berks County (Churchill's burned neck) and the Reading Eagle (Churchill asleep on a mat).