Cat lovers in Nanjing are aghast this week, at news of an incident whereby a young boy abused a kitten through the door of a shoe shop; while the kitten’s owner seeks justice, she has received little more than an oral apology via video link.
This Monday, 19 October, owner of the shop in Nanjing’s Gulou District, a Ms. Liu, returned from a business trip to find missing one of her kittens, both of which are 4 or 5 months old. The kitten was soon recovered, while the revelation came as to what had transpired the day before in Liu’s absence.
The shop’s security camera captured the incident on video, which can be seen here, in which the boy, apparently in his early teens, first approaches the locked doors of the shop.
Unable to enter, the boy proceeds to pull apart the double glass doors sufficiently that he could reach inside with a knife to taunt the kitten which was sitting just inside the shop, in the process scratching the cat’s face.
He then pulls the doors far enough apart for the cat to attempt to escape, but with the cat’s neck now between the two doors, the boys pulls them shut, throttling the cat and placing it in danger of asphyxiation.
Speaking with The Paper, Liu said, ”I don’t know this boy. His actions have caused harm to my cat, myself, my shop and my spirit. I will go through the legal process and seek justice”.
After the incident, Liu contacted her local police station on Nanjing’s Ninghai Lu, officers from which were able to identify the boy and reach out to his father. At first, Liu had hoped that the boy in question would come forward to apologise and make a written pledge, but his family rejected.
Liu then proposed that the boy’s family compensate for economic losses, and furthermore requested a written apology from the parents and a video apology from the boy, whereupon the family only agreed to the parents’ oral apology.
A final agreement was reached whereby the father consented to a face-face apology but nothing in writing, while the boy made his apology via an online video link.
