Teen apologizes after he was caught on camera laughing after throwing cat into brick wall
According to 9news.com.au, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), Queensland, was on the lookout for an Australian teen after a video emerged of him hurling a cat over a fence to a neighboring house's brick wall.
The video, which appeared to have been taken on a mobile phone and was uploaded on social media platform Snapchat, shows the offender dressed in a tradie's uniform and bending down to pick up a black cat in his arms. As the footage rolls, he nonchalantly hurls the feline over the neighboring fence into a brick wall.
Unaffected by the horrifying incident, he proceeds to hold his mouth and laugh maniacally at his handiwork. He was soon joined by two others, who similarly could not keep their laughter in check and can be heard marveling at what the teen had done.
The video was sent to the RSPCA by a random citizen who had gotten hold of it and working quickly, the organization had managed to identify that the incident took place in the region of Queensland, which houses numerous cities such as Brisbane, Rockhampton, Gladstone, and Hervey Bay.
Excellent detective work meant that the man was soon identified as 19-year-old Ipswich City resident Samuel Conroy. As he began to face the backlash for the act of animal cruelty from local press and social media, Conroy contacted 9news.com.au to offer his sincerest apology.
Explaining his side of the story, he claimed that the cat was a nuisance to him and his roommates: "I was living there with my mate and it was his mother’s cat. It was always scratching the screens — that wasn’t caught on the video. I picked it up and, pretty obviously, what the video shows what I did."
He said that he had done so in a moment of weakness and because he had let his anger take over, rather than 'using my brain.' Conroy also said that he had tried to hurl it far enough so it would land on the roof of the neighboring house but that he misjudged the distance.
Conroy said that the incident was filmed without his knowledge was by one of the other three men who were with him at the time and seemed to laughably claim he was not laughing at having thrown the cat but at the fact that he was being recorded.
He added that when he later felt sorry for the cat and when he checked on it, it was '100% fine': "I started feeling sorry for it, so I took it inside, fed it and gave it some water. The fact is no one in our household likes cats. We don’t want it as a pet."
Conroy stated that the cat belonged to the owner of the home and that she should have taken it with her when she moved out of the residence to Melbourne but none of his excuses seemed to placate angry animal rights activists who want to see him punished for the incident.
RSPCA Queensland Spokesman Michael Beatty confirmed that the cat was now under their care. He also said that they were finishing up their investigation into the case and would bring down the charges on Conroy in the coming weeks.
To his credit, the 19-year-old does seem genuinely sincere in his apologies for his actions on the day. In Queensland, animal cruelty charges carry a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment or a $220,000 fine and Conroy said that whatever punishment he was given would be 'well deserved.'
He told 9News that it was he who handed himself to the authorities, saying: "I don’t want to make it look like I’m hiding. I’m owning up to my actions. The whole story has been explained. I’m at fault. I shouldn't have done it and I’m sorry."