Texas animal cruelty law loopholes

Beware: this posting deals with animal cruelty and is very disturbing.

Last Thursday two Bryan, Texas college students were arrested on felony charges of animal cruelty and criminal mischief relating to the murder of a horse. According to the report in our local paper, the two students chased two horses around a pasture with golf clubs and polo mallets. One of the students told police that the other student wanted to kill one of the horses because they chased him the last time he was in the pasture. He said this other student struck the horse on the head with a polo mallet--knocking it down--and then jumped on top of the horse and began slashing at its neck with a knife. Both students then ran off, but later returned. The student who accused his friend of wanting to kill the horse then himself rammed a broken golf club into the chest and heart of the horse to "put it out of its misery."

I can’t begin to comprehend how a human being could commit such an inhumane act. I’ve really tried to figure it out, but so far I can’t get past the angry stage—and I best not say what punishment I’d like to inflict on the guilty parties.

But, while I got mad and sick to my stomach when I read about this sadistic crime in the morning paper, I’m even sicker and madder about it now because of what I’ve found out about our grossly deficient animal cruelty laws here in Texas.

The current animal cruelty statute (Texas Penal Code Section 42) is riddled with loopholes (put there intentionally and not) like the one that prevented the Bell County Attorney from prosecuting a man who deliberately ran over his own puppy with a lawn mower “because the cruelty law only covers killing someone else's animal and because the puppy's instant death didn't meet the law's definition of terror.”

In Harris County, animal cruelty law loopholes prevented the prosecution of a man who killed several kittens by stomping on their heads and warned his mother, who'd been feeding the animals, that he'd do the same to her.

In Waco, animal cruelty law loopholes prevented the prosecution of two Baylor University baseball players for shooting, decapitating, and skinning a cat nicknamed Queso that hung around a fast-food restaurant.

Other examples of horrific animal cruelty acts that have gone unpunished in this state because of loopholes, include: skinning and decapitating a feral cat; tying a dog to a tree and hammering it to death with a claw hammer; bludgeoning 22 emus with an aluminum baseball bat; burning a rabbit alive; and mutilating a live kitten.

As an example of one of the biggest loopholes, according to sub-sections (A)(5) and (9) of the Code, it is not a crime here in Texas for someone to kill, seriously injure, or administer poison to a stray animal or another person’s cattle, horses, sheep, swine, or goats. That is shear lunacy!

It is incomprehensible to me that our Texas legislators allotted themselves sufficient time to draft, debate and pass legislation making it a felony for an individual in the state to own six or more dildos (a law that was just a few weeks ago upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States when they refused to consider a challenge to its constitutionality), but they didn’t have the sense or time to close these and other loopholes in the animal cruelty law.

Given the loopholes, I don’t know how the animal cruelty charges against the two students will play out. If they’re not guilty, that’s one thing, but to escape responsibility and appropriate punishment for the horrible means used to murder that horse because of loopholes that have been intentionally allowed to remain, would be beyond absurd; it would be a crime against our humanity.

I intend to follow this matter very closely and will be reporting here on further developments.