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Andrea Peyser Still Doesn't Understand Why People Who Kill Pets Should Be Punished

2011_03_normanthecat.jpg
Norman the cat who was killed by Joseph Petcka
The Post's Andrea Peyser is now taking up the saga of slain hamster, Sweetie, who was killed during a Brooklyn family's dispute, because it's the perfect opportunity to wax about how trying to prosecute people who kill pets is a "waste of resources." Guess she hasn't read how animal and/or pet abuse can predict other abusive behavior!

Last week, 19-year-old Monique Smith was arrested and held at Rikers for two days after ASPCA investigators found evidence—and witness statements—that she killed her younger brother's pet hamster. But then charges were dropped because some family members changed their stories; Smith said in a jailhouse interview, "If I saw a hamster in this filthy place, I'd kill it. I didn't kill that hamster, but I'd kill one right now because that's what I'm in here for - a b------t rodent," adding, "It wasn't a body, it was a f-----g rat."

Peyser is sympathetic to Smith's complaints, pointing out the infamous 2003 case where a man was sentenced to two years for viciously stepping on his girlfriend's son's goldfish (the man also assaulted the girlfriend, landing him in prison for another nine years), and writes:

The Brooklyn district attorney, in a brief moment of sanity, dropped the animal-cruelty charge Friday. Her mom had to watch her baby while she was in jail. All this for a dead rat with fuzzy fur.

"It's not strange. It's not remarkable," said Pentangelo. Really?

Pentangelo quoted trial Judge Marcy Kahn's ruling against the goldfish assassin, calling it the "sadistic and depraved act of destroying a family pet." So if Smith simply gassed wild geese in Prospect Park, that might be OK . But what if she destroyed a treasured ant farm? "That might not be OK," said Pentangelo.

Then Peyser brings up Joseph Petcka, the 205-pound man who killed his girlfriend's cat Norman in a fit of rage. Petcka's first trial ended in mistrial so he took a plea deal for 500 hours of community service; in 2008, Peyser lamented, "He killed a cat! Can't this guy get a break?"

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Comments [rss]

  • So, she sees no reason to persue a case where a mother Killed her son's hamster in front of her NINE year old son? I have to wonder if both the mother and Peyser have mental issues. I mean you want to talk vicious, forget any dog attack. That right there is the definition of vicious, her picture deserves to be in a dictionary.

    The very idea that she would kill an animal in a fit of rage makes me wonder what she did/would do to her own son if she didn't have something else to turn her anger on.

    As far as food animals, it's all in what you support. I personally know how the food I eat has been raised and slaughtered, I get it from a nearby farm. I can even watch them slaughter the animals if I want to. I don't support these big mass produce farms where they're only concern is packing their wallets and producing meat as fast as possible.

  • OnyxE

    To the Real Cannibal, Because of gluttons like you food animals are bred, born, raised, and slaughtered. And because so many people, like you, think with their stomach the food animal industry is legal. Sad but true. Pets on the other hand are bred and born to be pets and when someone buys that pet they are directly responsible for its welfare. It is a matter of human responsibility and they do not have the right to cause that helpless animal distress and/or suffering. If they will harm a helpless voiceless creature like a hamster or any other animal how would these same people treat vulnerable humans? If they hurt an animal they have shown themselves to be irresponsible uncontrolled bullies. Society doesn't need them any more than their abused pets did.

  • Rammy

    "Smith said in a jailhouse interview, "If I saw a hamster in this filthy place, I'd kill it. I didn't kill that hamster, but I'd kill one right now because that's what I'm in here for - a b------t rodent," adding, "It wasn't a body, it was a f-----g rat."

    Maybe we lock up animal abusers/killers because they're scary. That quote above, kind of scary. If your impulse control is so poor, your temper so unchecked, that in moments of rage or pique you willfully destroy an animal - you're kind of scary.

    Add in the fact that all of the abusers mentioned above killed the pet of their sibling's/girlfriend's/ girlfriend's kid's - and we see an identifiable pattern of domestic abuse. These people suck.

    No one's prosecuting the jogger who accidentaly steps on a pigeon or a kid who "Lennys" a baby bunny - these people are raging assholes.

  • TheRealCannibal

    If we persecute people who torture and kill pets, why aren't we persecuting the chicken, beef, and aquaculture industry for the same crimes? I promise you that the average chicken that we eat every day suffered a lot more than this hamster.

  • felixthecat

    This extremely ugly woman should be beaten as those poor cats and maybe then she will feel
    Their pain and understand why the abusers should be punished. This is why I don't buy the post.

  • Unkle_Bob

    If "Criminal Minds" is to be believed, many serial killers start out as animal killers.

    Even if that's not entirely accurate, it's not a stretch to believe that people who viciously kill animals will have much less trouble doing the same to humans.

  • This lady is a f**king imbecile.

  • kevmills727

    I don't understand why people like Peyser continue to be gainfully employed. Actually, I don't understand why she continues to be allowed to use the same oxygen as the rest of us. Someone needs to send her to the "great hamster wheel in the sky"

  • CityFace

    Maybe someone can set her loose in Gramercy Park and she'll starve or freeze.

  • BlueberryAle

    If someone wants to bring up charges for something that, under the law, qualifies as animal abuse, that's their right. There are a lot of lawsuits that I think are technically a 'waste of time' or a 'waste of resources', but if someone is doing something that's within their rights I'm not going to stop them. Being an adult means being big enough to realize that the world doesn't have to change just to accomodate one's opinion. Peyser always seems to have trouble with that bit.

  • T

    whore

  • Listen, there is no reason to be mean to sex workers.

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