Police in North Carolina have launched an investigation after receiving multiple reports of kittens being thrown from moving cars. The Craven County Sheriff's Office is urging the public for help after several kittens were found on the Neuse River Bridge and on Highway 70 in James City over the past month.
The department posted photographs onto Facebook showing one of the injured kittens they have recovered over the past few weeks. The kitten has small scratches underneath its eyes and wounds covering the entire length of one of its legs.
"There will be zero tolerance for animal cruelty in Craven County," Sheriff Chip Hughes said in a statement. "We are aggressively going after folks like this that think it's OK to mistreat, abuse, and not care for their animals."
Speaking to the Sun Journal, Hughes described the acts of animal cruelty as "heinous."
"I can't understand why somebody would do that. I understand that some of the cats, they are known to get up in fenders and stuff like that, and that sometimes they are unable to keep hold and fall out. But this is happening more than just as a coincidental thing."
Hughes said that not all of the kittens recovered from the bridges were alive, and some were tossed into the river below. The department are adding more patrols near the bridges in a bid to catch the perpetrators and will be monitoring surveillance footage around the clock.
"Any lead we get, we are following," Hughes said. "We're conducting investigations on it."
The sheriff's department are asking anyone who witnesses someone throwing animals from a vehicle to call 911 and if possible get the registration plate number. Officers are urging those who witness such an incident to not confront the person committing the crime.
Under North Carolina law, any person found to have maliciously committed the torture, mutilate, maim, cruelly beat, disfigure, poison, or kill, or cause or procure to be tortured, mutilated, maimed, cruelly beaten, disfigured, poisoned, or killed, any animal, can be prosecuted under Class H felony charges.
According to a report from the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) released last year, North Carolina was ranked number 36 in the table of best U.S. states for animal protection laws.
The report noted that North Carolina was one of 17 jurisdictions which had recently added felonies for repeated or aggravated animal neglect. Other states included Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Michigan, Nebraska, and New Jersey.
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Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
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