A judge said the mother-of-three had “embarrassed the nation.”

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.

  • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    81·
    14 days ago

    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

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      32·
      14 days ago

      I so agree. Unchallenged assumptions built into the carnist worldview lead people into some very weird positions.

      I remember some crazy carnist growling at some other veg*n at the table at a restaurant: “I don’t know WHAT you people are going to do in the Armageddon”.

      This was their response to a vegn asking some rather basic questions about the menu. So many questions: for one thing, they seem to think that an Armageddon is coming. For another, they seem to think that they’d be doing what, “living off the land”? Don’t make me fucking laugh. And another, they seem to think that being vegn is some kind of suicide pact? Lastly, this is their excuse for being a carnist? That there is supposedly an Armageddon that will require eating meat, so they must consume it now?

      The carnist response to even the existence of veg*ns really seems to flummox some of them to the point of complete incoherence on their part. Some of the conversations I’ve been subjected to from some of them are just eye-boggling weird. I don’t bother trying to reason with carnists; trying to reason them out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into is not my thing, but they want to “debate” me the minute they learn I’m vegetarian, usually starting with the groaner “but where do you get your protein?”, LOL.