Cable TV Workers Accused Of Cat Cruelty. Cat So Mutilated, Gender Could Not Be Determined

By Bridget Murphy
Staff Writer
December 30, 2003

ATLANTIC CITY - Two cable installers face animal-cruelty charges after police allegedly saw a cat tethered to the bumper of a cable-company truck and being dragged along at a high rate of speed as another truck from the same company drove behind it.

The Dec. 22 incident killed the adult cat and left it mutilated to the point that the animal's sex cannot be determined, police Sgt. Ken Brown said Monday. Brown witnessed the incident on Route 30, while driving into the city shortly after 3 p.m. to work a uniformed security detail. After first spotting the truck dragging the animal while on Route 30 in Absecon, the sergeant radioed to the Police Department and had a marked patrol car stop the cable trucks - both from Somers Point-based Ocean Cable Group - at Route 30 and Grammercy Avenue.

"The cat was tied to the rear bumper of one truck by its neck with four feet of cable wire and one of its legs had snapped off", Brown said. "I've seen some really bad things in my 27 years here, but this is up there," the Police Department veteran said Monday, soon after signing complaints against the drivers of both cable trucks. "To do something like this to an animal - it's despicable."