A Senior Citizen in Key Largo Is Beaten, Bruised, and Bloodied in Another Violent Assault Upon a Volunteer Feeding Homeless Cats

Robert Smith Was Sucker-Punched in the Face

"My crime is feeding cats."
-- Robert Smith

Seventy-four-year-old Robert Smith has been caring for the homeless cats of Key Largo for seven years. He puts out food and water and exchanges pleasantries with them before moving on down the line to the next stop on his daily route.

"There's a one-eyed cat I look out for by the (Key Largo) Fisheries (and Backyard Cafe at 1313 Ocean Bay Drive). There's also two black and whites that I feed," he explained to the Florida Keys Free Press on May 22nd. (See "Elderly Man: Feeding Cats Led to Assault.") "There's a woman who lets me feed them outside her house."

Little did he realize as he dutifully went about his labors of love on May 15th that he was about to become the latest volunteer to fall victim to a spiraling crime wave that is being directed at compassionate and dedicated individuals like himself who have the temerity to care about those cats that society was cruelly abandoned and unforgivably forgotten. By 2 a.m. his nocturnal rambles had brought him to a wooded area located between the Upper Keys Humane Society (UKHS) at 101617 the Overseas Highway (also known as U.S. 1) and the Tradewinds Shopping Center at 101437 the Overseas Highway and that was when his years of doing good finally caught up with him in a rather violent fashion.

Specifically, a young ruffian suddenly materialized out of the darkness and began screaming in his face that it was illegal to feed homeless cats in Key Largo. The man additionally claimed that he not only was employed by the UKHS but that he also liquidated cats for it.

As far as his first accusation is concerned, it most definitely is not illegal to feed homeless cats in Key Largo. His second assertion is a good deal thornier to sort out because all shelters that claim to be no-kill, such as the UKHS, nonetheless do in fact kill cats and other animals.

The only real difference between conventional shelters and no-kill facilities is that the latter at least claim to liquidate far fewer of their inmates than do the former. (See Cat Defender posts of July 29, 2010 and October 23, 2012 entitled, respectively, "The Benicia Vallejo Humane Society Is Outsourcing the Mass Killing of Kittens and Cats All the While Masquerading as a No-Kill Shelter" and "A Supposedly No-Kill Operation in Marblehead Betrays Sally and Snuffs Out Her Life Instead of Providing Her with a Home and Veterinary Care.")

The dilemma is compounded by the fact that all those who operate shelters are outrageous liars. The UKHS, for example, has space for only eleven cats and eighteen dogs so it surely must be either turning away or killing cats and dogs in droves.

By contrast, the Humane Animal Care Coalition (HACC) at 105951 the Overseas Highway also operates a shelter and while it admits to having impounded four-hundred-fifty cats and one-hundred-sixty dogs during 2017 it is careful to omit any mention whatsoever on its web site of what happened to those animals. If past experience is any guide, it is a sure bet that it slaughtered just about every one of the cats.

Regardless of the man's questionable credibility, Smith had no choice but to respond to his verbal assault in some fashion but what he said by way of rebuttal has not been reported in the press. It turned out to have been a very brief conversation anyway because as he turned to leave the cowardly hooligan sucker-punched him in the face.

The force of the blow knocked Smith to the pavement and he may even have temporarily lost consciousness. Once he was able to have regained his footing, his attacker had fled into a RV park across the highway.

Although dazed, bleeding profusely, and bruised, Smith heroically finished feeding the cats before his unidentified girlfriend, who had been waiting patiently nearby in her pickup truck, intervened and drove him to the Circle K gas station at 102525 the Overseas Highway where paramedics were summoned by telephone. Upon arrival, they treated him for multiple cuts and bruises to his face and head but he categorically refused to be hospitalized.

The force of the blow also left him with several broken molars that are going to cost him an arm and a leg in order to repair as well as a road rash on his arm. It is not known what, if any, internal injuries that he may have sustained.

The only thing that has been reported in that regard is that he was still not feeling quite up to snuff the following day. "My mind is still a little fuzzy," he confided to the Florida Keys Free Press.

Deputies Daniel Valdez and Paul Bean of the Monroe County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) also showed up at the Circle K where they took a statement from Smith. Most importantly, he described his assailant as a fair complexioned white man in his thirties. He also is believed to have been around six-foot, three-inches tall with facial hair.

Armed with Smith's description of his attacker and the fact that he, apparently, either lives or was visiting the RV park across the street, the MCSO should not have had any difficulty whatsoever in making an immediate arrest. Since at last report that has not occurred, the most logical explanation is that the MCSO has not bothered to even open an investigation into the attack.

Inexplicably, the MCSO still has Smith's unwavering support.  "...the police (sic) are doing what they can to find this guy," he mindlessly caroled to the Florida Keys Free Press.

With his cuts, bruises, broken teeth, and lost blood, Smith now has joined a growing list of high-profile volunteers who have been either beaten, verbally intimidated, arrested, threatened with eviction, and fired from their jobs for showing compassion for homeless cats. Most prominently, fifty-five-year-old Lisa Maureen Saunders of Orlando is currently facing up to five years behind bars for defending her lawful right to feed starving cats. (See Cat Defender post of May 16, 2019 entitled "An Orlando Woman Is Unfairly Arrested and Jailed for Defending Her Right to Feed Homeless Cats and as a Consequence Those Under Her Care Have Been Left to the Mercy of the Cold-Blooded Killers at Orange County Animal Services.")

In 2013, forty-seven-year-old Jennifer Stafford of Los Angeles was beaten nearly to death for feeding the homeless cats that reside in her West Adams neighborhood. (See Cat Defender post of May 19, 2019 entitled "The Savage Beating Meted Out to a Volunteer in Los Angeles by a Racist Hooligan Vividly Demonstrates Just How Dangerous It Has Become to Feed Homeless Cats.")

In 2010, Jeanne Ambler was nearly evicted from her dwelling in Temple Terrace, Florida, for doing likewise. (See Cat Defender post of August 2, 2010 entitled "Old, Poor, and Sickly Jeanne Ambler Is Facing Eviction for Feeding a Trio of Hungry Cats.")

A few years before that Janice L. Rolfe of Grandview Heights was actually arrested and forced to stand trial for feeding a homeless cat. "People don't get prosecuted for acts of human kindness," her attorney, Mark A. Serrott, successfully pleaded on her behalf. (See Cat Defender post of February 27, 2007 entitled "Charged with Feeding a Feral Cat Named Fluffy, a Retired Ohio English Teacher Beats the Rap.")

If only that were the case because individuals most definitely have run afoul of the law for feeding cats in jurisdictions that have outlawed such acts of kindness. Furthermore, individuals such as John Beck have been axed from their jobs for feeding cats. (See Cat Defender post of June 14, 2006 entitled "A Kindhearted Dairyman, Sacked for Feeding Feral Cats, Files a $20 Million Lawsuit Against Cornell University," the Courtland Standard, February 22, 2007, "Groton Man Appeals Dismissal of His Lawsuit Against Cornell University," and the Ithaca Times, January 11, 2012, "Groton Wins Court Case Against Beck.")

In spite of the severe beating that was doled out to him, Smith has remained both defiant and steadfast. "My crime is feeding cats," he told the Florida Keys Free Press. "I'm not going to be bullied by this. I have to live my life."

True to his word, he was back on the job the day following the attack. Besides, he has considerably more on his mind these days than just his personal safety.

For instance, of paramount importance to him is the safety and well-being of the one-hundred or so homeless cats that currently call the Tradewinds Shopping Center home. Recently, the charity Casting for Cats of Islamorada, twenty-seven kilometers south of Key Largo, inaugurated a TNR program at the shopping plaza and during April forty-one cats were trapped, sterilized, vaccinated, and treated for parasites before being returned to the area.

Although it is heartening that none of them tested positive for either FeLV or FIV, they are far from being out of harm's way in that, as far as it has been reported, none of them have been placed in new homes. "They took thirty-nine cats from the Winn-Dixie (a supermarket in Islamorada) and slaughtered them three years ago," Smith related to the Florida Keys Free Press. "I just hope Tradewinds continues to work with Casting for Cats."

Tradewinds is owned by Kimco Realty of New Hyde Park in Nassau County on Long Island and, as a real estate investment trust (REIT), it owns four-hundred-thirty-six additional shopping centers across the United States. So far, it has been compassionate enough to grant Casting for Cats permission to trap its cats and to set up feeding stations at the shopping plaza.

Smith also Had Several Teeth Knocked Out

"This is the best way to keep our customers safe and humanely take care of the cats, which have grown in numbers," the real estate giant's Jennifer Maisch told the Florida Keys Free Press earlier on May 1st. (See "Group Pursues Non-Lethal Feral Cat Control.") "We're also hoping that the feeding stations will dissuade people from just throwing food down to feed the cats."

The trapping effort at Tradewinds has been aided by pet store Keys Kritters at 100636 the Overseas Highway which is offering some of the cats to the public for adoption. The UKHS has taken in an undetermined number of kittens that have been, for one reason or another, taken away from their mothers and, presumably, have to be bottle-fed.

HACC has reportedly performed some sterilizations for Casting for Cats while the Fleming Foundation of parts unknown has donated an unspecified amount of money to the effort. Huge concerns remain unaddressed, however.

The most pressing of which is the presence of such as large number of abandoned cats in a locale with a population of just slightly more than ten-thousand souls. Clearly an initiative that includes, inter alia, a public outreach program, on demand sterilizations, and a much greater emphasis upon adoptions is direly needed.

"It's not the cats' fault they're here," Sharon Mahoney-Ellenwood of Casting for Cats correctly deduced for the Florida Keys Free Press on May 1st. "Part of this is humans not taking care of their animals."

Getting to the bottom of the homeless cat conundrum in Key Largo as well as elsewhere in the Florida Keys remains, however, a sticky wicket. For example, although Mahoney-Ellenwood insists that TNR has succeeded in Marathon, eighty-one kilometers north of Key West, and Islamorada, it and Casting for Cats most assuredly failed those cats that used to live at Winn-Dixie.

That in turn segues into the disturbing question of exactly how many cats and kittens are being quietly liquidated every day in Key Largo, Islamorada, and at other locales throughout the Keys. Furthermore, even though divine retribution is largely a figment of the imagination, it nevertheless is pleasing to know that Winn-Dixie and its god-rotten Chek® cola are now themselves floundering on the rocks. (See Business Insider, March 27, 2018, "Winn-Dixie Is Closing Almost One-Hundred Stores as Its Parent Company Files for Bankruptcy -- See If Your Store Is on the List.")

Overall, supermarket chains are notorious for nakedly exploiting, neglecting, and killing cats. (See Cat Defender post of April 24, 2019 entitled "The Life, Times, and Tragic Demise of a Supermarket Cat: Brutus of Morrisons, 2009-2017.")

Acts of lawlessness directed at the volunteers are far from being the only menaces bedeviling the lives of homeless cats. Most prominently, whenever despisers of the species tire of targeting their caretakers they redirect their machinations toward the cats themselves. (See Cat Defender posts of January 5, 2011, August 24, 2017, July 12, 2011, November 18, 2011, and January 6, 2012 entitled, respectively, "Gunned Down by an Assassin and Then Mowed Down by a Hit-and-Run Driver, Big Bob Loses a Leg but Survives and Now Is Looking for a Home," "The Brutal Murders of a Trio of Atlantic City's Boardwalk Cats Provide an Occasion for the Local Rag and PETA to Whoop It Up and to Break Open the Champagne," "The Arrest of Nico Dauphiné for Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats Unmasks the National Zoo as a Hideout for Ailurophobes and Criminals," "Nico Dauphiné, Ph.D., Is Convicted of Attempting to Poison a Colony of Homeless Cats but Questions Remain Concerning the Smithsonian's Role," and "Nico Dauphiné Is Let Off with an Insultingly Lenient $100 Fine in a Show Trial That Was Fixed from the Very Beginning.")

As the MCSO's steadfast refusal to make an arrest in the violent beating of Smith has once again demonstrated, the law enforcement community, humane groups, and the courts can hardly be expected to either enforce the anti-cruelty statutes or to protect the volunteers. Au contraire, it could even be argued that most of them are in league with the sworn enemies of the species.

Wild animals pose an additional threat to both homeless cats that are on their own as well as those that belong to managed colonies. For instance, wildlife biologists have driven out coyotes from their rural habitats just so that they can prey upon homeless and domesticated cats in both the cities and the suburbs. (See Cat Defender posts of October 2, 2006, December 4, 2007, September 15, 2011, and September 17, 2011 entitled, respectively, "Coyotes, Cheered on by Wildlife Officials, Join Raccoons in Killing Cats and Dogs in Washington State," "A Grieving Widow Risks Her Life in Order to Save Cosmo from the Jaws of a Hungry Coyote in Thousand Oaks," "Ravenous Coyotes, Cat-Haters, and Old Man Winter All Want Her Dead, Buried, and Gone but Brave Little Half Mask Is Defying All the Odds," and "Coyotes, Swimming from Connecticut, Are Blamed for Killing Twenty Cats on Remote and Exclusive Fishers Island.")

They also are using both raccoons and birds of prey in a similar fashion. (See Cat Defender posts of August 28, 2006, August 1, 2011, and February 16, 2012 entitled, respectively, "A Marauding Pack of Vicious Raccoons Rips Ten House Cats to Shreds and Terrorizes Residents in Olympia but Wildlife Officials Refuse to Intervene," "Eddie Is Saved by an Outdoor Umbrella after He Is Abducted from the Balcony of His Manhattan Apartment and Then Dropped by a Redtailed Hawk," and "Hawk Suffers Puncture Wounds to His Stomach and One Paw When He Is Abducted by a Raptor Hired to Patrol a City Dump on Vancouver Island.")

They even have reintroduced fishers to the densely-populated northeast in order to pick off cats. (See Cat Defender posts of July 19, 2007 and August 28, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Up to Their Old Tricks, Wildlife Officials Reintroduce Fishers to the Northeast to Prey Upon Cats and to Provide Income for Fur Traffickers" and "TNR Programs, Domestic Cats, Dogs, and Humans Are Imperiled by Wildlife Proponents' Use and Abuse of Coyotes and Fishers.")

The escalating pace of climate change is additionally making it more difficult for cats to survive in exclusively outdoor environments. For example, hurricanes Irene and Sandy exacted a heavy toll on Atlantic City's Boardwalk Cats.

Ornithologists and wildlife biologists have pressured the national government in Washington into declaring cats to be personae non gratae on federal lands, such as Plum Beach in Brooklyn, and last August the American Bird Conservancy of The Plains, Virginia, successfully convinced both a federal court judge and New York State to get rid of the Jones Beach cats on Long Island. (See Cat Defender posts of August 7, 2014 and January 19, 2019 entitled, respectively, "The National Parks Service Racks Up a Major Victory by Expelling the Plum Beach Cats but It Is Thwarted in Its Burning Desire to Dance a Merry Little Jig on Their Graves" and "The American Bird Conservancy, a Stench of the Federal Bench, and New York State Parks Pool Their Resources in Order to Put the Screws to the Jones Beach Cats.")

Supplied with unlimited amounts of taxpayers funding, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the USDA's Wildlife Services have been waging an all-out war against cats in the Keys for decades. (See Cat Defender posts of May 24, 2007 and June 23, 2011 entitled, respectively, "The United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the USDA's Wildlife Services Commence Trapping and Killing Cats on Florida's Big Pine Key" and "Wallowing in Welfare Dollars, Lies, and Prejudice, the Bloodthirsty United States Fish and Wildlife Service Is Again Killing Cats in the Florida Keys.")

The USFWS even has been attempting to strong-arm state and local officials into enacting anti-roaming statutes, to require that all cats be either microchipped or tattooed, and to remove all feeding stations that are located in the vicinity of federal and state wildlife refuges. When the high-muck-a-mucks went after famed scuba diver Spencer Slate and his cat Rocky, however, they got considerably more than they had anticipated.

They began their devilry by illegally trapping Rocky on private property a scant fifty feet removed from Slate's residence. They followed that up by confining a bloody and bleeding Rocky to a shelter.

They next showed up on Slate's doorstep in order to issue him a citation for allegedly allowing Rocky to roam on federal land. The agents were so emboldened that they even went so far as to threaten to jail him on the spot.

Not being the type of man who tolerates such outrages lying down, Slate went toe-to-toe with the USFWS in federal court where he ultimately prevailed. (See The Daily Signal of Washington, November 30, 2016, "Federal Agents Threaten Pet Owners with a War on Cats.")

The fifty or so polydactyls that reside at the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West were not nearly so lucky when the USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service declared war on them shortly after the turn of the century. After nearly ten years of legal wrangling the museum ultimately was forced into not only confining them but also into erecting a fence around its perimeter. (See Cat Defender posts of August 3, 2006, January 9, 2007, July 23, 2007, and January 24, 2013 entitled, respectively, "The USDA Fines the Hemingway Memorial in Key West $200 a Day for Exhibiting Papa's Polydactyls Without a License," "Papa Hemingway's Polydactyl Cats Face New Threats from Both the USDA and Their Caretakers," "A Cat Behaviorist Is Summoned to Key West in Order to Help Determine the Fate of Hemingway's Polydactyls," and "The Feds Now Have Cats and Their Owners Exactly Where They Want Them Thanks to an Outrageous Court Ruling Targeting the Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West.")

With so many individuals, groups, and powerful interests aligned against them, the future has never looked bleaker for homeless cats and their dedicated caretakers. All is not lost, however, and the latter still have a few arrows left in their quivers.

One palliative would be to install surveillance cameras at the shelters and feeding stations of the cats that are under their care. Another option would be to have groups of two and three adults feed the cats in tandem. One person could therefore stand guard while the others fed them.

In Smith's case, he feeds his cats at night because there are fewer motorists on the road at that time in order to frighten them away but, considering the beating that he received, he may be forced into foregoing nocturnal feedings. Should he persist, however, he needs to arm himself with, at the very least, a canister of pepper spray.

In the long run, he and other caretakers may be left with little choice other than to relocate their TNR colonies onto private lands. Hopefully matters will not reach that point but that nevertheless is an eventuality that all of them should carefully contemplate.

The absolute last thing on earth that any fan of the species ever wants to see happen is for any cat to wind up at the mercy of its sworn enemies. Even being sentenced to serve out the remainder of their lives in a dog pound, as happened to those that once resided at Jones Beach, is a fate almost as bad.

Photos: Teresa Java of the Florida Keys Free Press.