kittensPeople who abuse animals when they don't feel like caring for them really do deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, like a Florida man who was arrested for putting four kittens in plastic bags in his freezer. Even if you're not a cat person, just hearing that should make you cringe if you've got half a heart. IN THE FREEZER. ALIVE. I can't even imagine what kind of person would do this.

Rodney Jon Blanchard was arrested and faces four felony charges of cruelty to animals and one charge of simple battery. The 6-week-old kittens were found by his friend, Eva Mulder, who Blanchard had asked to fetch him a beer from the freezer. Instead of beer, she found the kittens, sealed in plastic bags. When he wouldn't let her take them out, she left and called the police. "They were in the zip-lock bags and they were closed," she told the local news. "Yeah, he was trying to kill them."

Why would anyone try to kill animals by freezing them to death in plastic bags? How could you take a tiny kitten, zip it in the bag, and then close the door, knowing the kitten would suffer and that you'd come back to a dead kitten? It's horrifying and disgusting and shows such a depraved indifference for life that it makes me wonder what else he's capable of.

A spokesperson for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office said he made a statement "to the effect of 'I don't know what I was thinking.'" And when the deputy kept asking why he'd done it, he said he "put the kittens in time out." Time out? For real? That's absolutely absurd. In plastic bags in a freezer is not a "time out." It's seriously messed up. He's being held on $8,500 bond, which is hopefully enough to keep him locked up long enough to really think about what he's done.

To make the entire story even weirder, Blanchard had been left in charge of the kittens because their owners, his son and a roommate, were in jail after a bizarro love-triangle gone wrong. They had been arrested for shooting Blanchard's son's would-be lover and her boyfriend. It seems like the whole family's decision-making skills are excellent. Not.

What do you think should happen to people who are cruel to animals?

 

Image via crsan - christianholmer.com/Flickr