Elkhart County Prosecutor Vicki Becker’s handling of the Jayco cats case is not sitting well with the county’s Humane Society.
Humane Society of Elkhart County Executive Director Rob Laroy acknowledges that he’s no attorney and that Becker has more information about the case than he does. Still, he says he and his staff want her to refile animal cruelty charges against the three Jayco RV workers who admitted killing two cats in a trash compactor.
Court records show one of the workers told police they killed the cats in February because the shelter was full. But Laroy says the shelter always accepts stray animals under contract with the county.
"The winter months we generally are pretty low on the number of cats in our facilities," Laroy says. "Certainly in February we had plenty of room to bring in strays."
Laroy also doesn’t share Becker’s belief that killing the cats in a compactor wouldn’t meet the law’s definition of torture since she can’t prove they intentionally prolonged their deaths.
“Trash compactors move very slowly and have a lot of force behind them, so if there was styrofoam or cardboard or some sort of soft material in there, then this was a pretty distressful way for those animals to be euthanized.”
Becker initially filed felony charges against the workers — 44-year-old John Lipscomb, 29-year-old Travis McKay and 31-year-old Arlin Hochstetler — but quickly withdrew the charges when the case drew media attention.
Becker has declined WVPE's interview requests. In a written statement outlining her legal rationale, she indicated her belief that feral cats that damage property, as she says was the case here, deserve no more protection from destruction than vermin like rats or opossums.
Laroy called that idea “ridiculous."
"I think it sets a troubling precedent," he says. "We've now, at least in our county, have determined that cats are a vermin-type species. Cats are a domestic animal and I think that the way we read the Indiana state law certainly does not give the opportunity for cats to be listed as vermin."
