8mo ago

‘They’re Eating the Cats’: American Woman Jailed in Ohio

www.thedailybeast.com

Summary

Allexis Ferrell, a 27-year-old Ohio woman, was sentenced to one year in prison for killing and attempting to eat a cat.

The case gained global attention after it was falsely linked to Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, by Donald Trump and JD Vance, despite Ferrell being a U.S. citizen from Canton, 170 miles away.

The baseless claims were widely debunked by authorities.

Ferrell, a mother of three, was found competent to stand trial and requested treatment for substance abuse.

Judge Frank Forchione called the crime "repulsive" and sentenced her to the maximum term.

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“Officers were able to determine that Allexis had smashed the cat’s head with her foot and then began to eat the cat. I did observe blood on Allexis' feet, hands, and fur on her lips,” said an officer’s report.
Once again, the mentally ill remanded to the prison complex.
- The defendant had previously pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but a competency report from Akron’s Psycho-Diagnostic Clinic said she was capable of understanding the court proceedings.
  The Canton Repository reported that the mother-of-three’s psychological report said she was “irritable, aggressive, deceitful, lacks remorse, shows a reckless disregard for the safety of others and fails to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.”
  Fucked up
  
  The defendant had previously pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but a competency report from Akron’s Psycho-Diagnostic Clinic said she was capable of understanding the court proceedings.
  IANAL, but not guilty by reason by insanity and competent to stand trial are completely different things. You can be competent and not guilty by reason of insanity. Insanity defense means you were out of your mind at time of the crime, not at time of trial or permanently.
- Well, where else do you expect the ~~slave labor~~ private prison industry to acquire ~~slaves~~ inmates? Immigrants? Immigrant children? American citizens who look like immigr--wait, nevermind, I answered my own question.
Why is the fact that she’s a us citizen in the last paragraph?
EDIT: I phrased this poorly, I meant, why hold that information back until the last paragraph? That's sort of the key part of the story.
- Allexis T. Ferrell’s arrest received worldwide attention after it was falsely used as proof of claims by Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating their pets.
  Because it was being said that Haitian immigrants were the ones eating cats.
  And this right here is a prime example of what Fox News and Republican sycophants do time and time again because the truth simply won’t work for their agendas. Let’s take a true story that has some legs and twist it the fuck up to really get it moving, but with their exciting new twist on it.
  This right here is what that moron, you republicans voted for, was talking about in his last debate. He rolled with this bullshit, on national television, in full view of the world, and said Haitian immigrants were eating cats because of this story gone game-of-telephone.
  Nice, reeeaaal nice…
  
  Yeah, I phrased that poorly, I was painfully aware of the Haitians eating cats BS, I meant this more like "why wait until the last paragraph to drop that key bit of information?" Clumsy writing / story structure at the very least.
Buried lead:
…the Canton incident happened approximately 170 miles from Springfield and Ferrell is a U.S. citizen.
- Not really buried when it's in the summary of the post.
  
  I mean it's pretty much in the title. The summary isn't part of the original article, readers of the article elsewhere had to dig for it if they misinterpreted the title.
- Not important, but it's lede — a common mistake!
  
  I appreciate the correction!
Came to bag on Trump Vance, stayed to say separate issue this person needs help not prison ffs.
- In an ideal world, prison is a place where people go to get help. It is the "department of corrections" not the "department of punishment"
  
  In America, it's fairly common to still find people feeling it is hilarious and/or just that men get raped in prison. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard that from people - that going to prison SHOULD involve men getting raped, because then they'll learn. This kind of discussion even for things like possessing a joint. What someone is supposed to "learn" from rape is unclear, but this country is full of some very backward notions still.
  No wonder misogyny is such a problem if some Americans think it high comedy and male "criminals" are getting their just desserts by getting raped as a method of "correction".
  I've often heard this from women, too. One was a former GF (we didn't last long). I did finally ask my GF if she thought women should get raped as part of this system, too, including for nonviolent crimes. I've asked other women that were gleeful about the prospect of some "criminal" (in some cases, someone they personally knew) getting raped if they think it should work for female "criminals", too. They recoiled at the question - even being asked bothered them. Those that did answer all said no, but that any men that get raped is because they deserve it, and need to "know what it is like".
  People can be weird sometimes.
  
  Department of miserable warehousing until you make it out and are held at arm’s length by society for being an ex-con for the rest of your life.
Now do factory farmers
More like "We're earing the cats!"
Um, this sounds totally bonkers, but the carnist bias built into the everyday sure is weird, isn't it?
- That cat had a horrific death, yet somehow still better than most pigs in the US. That judge should imprison all slaughterhouse owners.
  
  It really is a weird sort of cognitive dissonance that killing and eating a cat lands you in jail but killing and eating a pig nobody would even blink twice
  Like, yeah, the person probably is not okay in some way, but what justification is there for jail?? And not just like, therapy at best? Why is a cat's life valued so much more than a pigs or cows life? Is it just because they are culturally considered cute? That's a fucked up thing to set legal precedent upon
  If we consider animal abuse to be bad, then we'd better be consistent
  “I can’t express the disappointment, shock, disgust that this crime has brought to me. I don’t know what could prompt anyone to want to eat a cat,” said the judge.
  “You’ve embarrassed this county. You’ve embarrassed this nation. More importantly, you’ve embarrassed yourself,” added Forchione. “To me, you present quite a danger to our community. This is repulsive to me, I mean, that anyone would do this to an animal. And an animal’s like a child. I don’t know if you understand that or not.”
  I mean, reading this spoken by people who, I would assume, eat meat is wild to me. And as far as I can tell, this was not someone's pet
And here I thought orange just pulled this out of his ass to malign immigrants.
- He did. The fact that someone (who isn't an immigrant) did it in a different place than they said does not make them correct.
  The original story was a woman who lost her cat (later found in their basement IIRC) and blamed migrants for it baselessly. It has been totally refuted. You can't just shift a story to a totally different thing and claim it was correct later.
Why would you eat a cat that's not what you do with cats, you simply don't
- I only eat things that have friends and enjoys music.
- Why wouldn't you eat a cat? It's less social than a cow or a pig.
  Personally, I'm too lazy to hunt, so I just get my meat from Elwood's (https://www.elwooddogmeat.com/). Hoping they add cat to their lineup one day.
  
  Eating carnavores is a pretty bad idea, they accumulate parasites, they taste terrible (too lean, too tough, and a lot of the nastiness of the meat they eat acumulates in their meat) and it makes no sense to farm them for meat as whatever you feed them probably tastes better and provides more meat for less effort.
  Dogs are omnivores (and can be raised vegetarian), a much better choice.
USA is where people are violently put in desperate situations, then caged for acting out of desperation. One "party" uses racism to blame the whole situation on the most vulnerable minorities. The other "party" cheers on the judge and celebrates the "humor" of it all.
Not to mention the extreme carnist hypocrisy described in other comments... USA is a real gross place to live.

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