Killed cat leads to community outrage

VEREENIGING. – An incident where a family’s cat was allegedly shot and killed by a neighbour on Saturday 9 May in Arcon Park has led to an outcry and even death threats towards the neighbour who allegedly committed this despicable act.

This follows after a woman from Arcon Park alleged on Facebook that her cat was shot by the neighbour while walking on the wall dividing their properties.

“Rest in peace my beloved Tiger. Today our neighbour shot our cat for walking on the wall, we have confronted him before and he admitted to catching them in a cage and hitting them, we had a few cats before that needed professional attention for being shot and injured. We are inconsolable,” she alleges in the Facebook post.

In another post the mother of the woman alleges that her husband was “outside when the incident happened” and “saw everything”.

The Facebook-post which by Monday afternoon had been shared more than a 100 times has caused an outrage with members of the community calling for the neighbour to be reported to the police and SPCA, beaten up and even have “battery acid” thrown on him.

When asked for comment a member of the family to whom the cat belongs declined to comment. “We have taken the cat to a vet to perform and autopsy and will submit this to the police. The matter is under currently under investigation and at this stage we do not wish to comment,” said a member of the aggrieved family.

Marlien de Klerk, manager of the Vereeniging and Vanderbijlpark SPCA, said while she was contacted about the incident on Saturday night, the SPCA had requested that the cat be taken for an autopsy and that the report by submitted to the SPCA.

She said however that the autopsy report had still not been submitted by Monday afternoon.

According to De Klerk said a person commiting such a crime could be charged with both animal cruelty and the discharging of a firearm in a residential area.

Enquiries were sent to capt. Fikile Funa, a spokesperson for the police in Vereeniging. At the time of publishing the article Funda could not confirm whether a case docket had indeed been opened at the police with regards to the incident.