Defenseless creatures

I am writing regarding the article about the teens convicted of only misdemeanors in the Fairfield, Iowa, cat slayings. I have been following the case since the attack first happened and I am outraged by the decision. What those boys did was not merely “a stupid childish mistake,” like toilet-papering someone’s house on Halloween. They waged a brutal attack on the innocent lives of creatures defenseless against them.

If a person will beat 16 cats to death for kicks, just imagine what he is capable of doing to his fellow humans. Most serial killers tortured and killed animals as children and teens and the acts went unpunished. This pattern has been well established.

As long as our society continues to say the lives of the defenseless are unimportant by ignoring crimes against animals, it will be forever asking itself what happened to make the killer or the rapist regard human lives with the same brutality and disregard. Crystal Ray Pomroy Dexter