Followup on Out-of-Control Animal Control Officer
Last week, we reported the story of Lackawanna, New York animal control officer Fred Grasso, who gunned down a mother cat and her kittens but was subsequently found innocent of all charges by a judge who ruled that Grasso’s actions were justified.
Here’s video coverage of the story:
In a reader? Click here.
In Sunday’s Buffalo News, Donn Esmonde tells us the rest of the story… a tale of a loving and affectionate mother cat who was a welcome guest at neighborhood barbecues, and an out-of-control animal control officer who, despite an excuse that he thought the cats were rabid, dumped the bodies in landfill instead of preserving them for rabies testing:
by Donn Esmonde
The white blanket still is there, on the shelf in the basement storage unit. Jackie Ceccarelli laid it there last spring, soon after the gray cat— clearly pregnant—came in through the broken cellar window. It walked up to her, purring.
It was the start of a nice friendship, a friendship that continued as the cat bore six kittens on that same blanket. The friendship grew as Ceccarelli, 22, and others in the Lackawanna apartment complex fed and petted the new mother. The friendship expanded to include the pet’s attendance at backyard cookouts.
The friendship between the stray— abandoned when a family moved out— and residents in the brick, four-unit apartment buildings ended June 10. On that day, what sounds to me like an out-of-control animal control officer shot the mother cat dead in her basement home, along with two of the kittens.
Fred Grasso—responding to what residents think was a complaint about a different cat— claimed in court he acted after the “hissing” cat and kittens “came at me.” The very idea of an “attack cat” sounds bizarre to me. Nor can I fathom why a man with a .22-caliber rifle felt threatened by a 10- pound cat and 6-week-old kittens. Nor do I understand why an animal control officer who supposedly feared that the cats were rabid—as Grasso claimed— discarded the corpses in a landfill, instead of preserving the bodies for testing.
It gets worse. I recently went to the building where the cats were killed. Grasso—despite the possibility of a ricochet— fired the rifle in a cellar with concrete walls and floor, four furnaces, four water heaters and two apartments directly overhead.
West Seneca Judge Richard Scott last week—to the disbelief of Ceccarelli and other residents, to the outrage of SPCA officials—dismissed animal cruelty charges and said Grasso was justified in executing the cat and kittens. We got a decision, but not justice.
At very least, Grasso showed such massively poor judgment that he should be taken off the job. I would not want this guy carrying a loaded rifle in my neighborhood. Yet Lackawanna Mayor Norm Polanski put Grasso back on the street.
“Did he use poor judgment? I don’t know, I wasn’t in that basement,” Polanski said. “The judge said he did the right thing, and that’s where it ends in my eyes.”
Grasso’s attorney called the cat and kittens “feral cats . . . a wild cat family.”
That is not what I heard.
“We’d have cookouts, and the mother cat would sit with us and we’d pet her,” Ceccarelli, a service station manager, told me. “The kittens were the size of your hand . . . Nobody here was afraid of these cats.”
Patricia Murtha lives across the street. She met the “attack cat” when it rubbed against her while she was gardening.
“She’d let us pet her, and then she’d run back to the basement to be with her kittens,” said Murtha, 58, a nurse’s aide. “She was such an affectionate cat . . . None of us can believe the judge let [Grasso] go.”
Murtha saw Grasso go in the building that day with a rifle and a black garbage bag. The bag was full when he came out.
“He dropped the bag on the ground, like [the cats] were garbage,” Murtha said. “I cried when he told me he killed them . . . He said the other [four] kittens ran under the dryer, so he couldn’t get them.”
Grasso did not return a call for comment left on his answering machine.
The four surviving kittens, healthy and friendly, have since been adopted. But the mother cat and two kittens are dead. Fred Grasso, and his rifle, are back on the street.
Which ought to make for a lot of nervous animal lovers in Lackawanna.
This is reportedly not the first (and not likely the last) time that Grasso has gunned down an animal. According to the Buffalo News, Lackawanna resident Melanie Wojcinski claims that Grasso shot her 2-year-old Labrador, Shadow, in July 2003 and dumped the dog’s body in a creek near her home. Although the police report on Shadow’s death stated that Grasso had disposed properly of the body, children playing near Smokes Creek found the dog’s body in the creek.
Here’s the contact information for the judge in the case:
Judge Richard B. Scott
West Seneca Town Court
1250 Union Road
West Seneca, NY 14224Phone: 716.558.3247
Fax: 716.674.0518
Unbelievable – there’s no way that we think his story sounds credible. What was that judge thinking? That guys needs another job, preferably one where he doesn’t carry a gun and go near animals.
Purrs
Gypsy & Tasha
Hi Skeezy, The verdict was disgusting and we do not believe that the officer was in any way threatened. Any cat, while cornered and scared, will hiss. He was probably poking at the poor cats with a club. Six week old kittens a dangerous threat??? Unbelievable and a truly sad story.
Fred Grasso – what a creep! And the judge isn’t any better!
We are constantly shocked and appalled at what people do to us animals. I don’t know why it still shocks us, but it does. The only thing we can hope for with some of these crappy people is that, after they cross the bridge, they pay for their cruelty.
This guy needs to be fired at the least. Next time maybe it will be a person who threatens him…
This guy broke so many rules it’s unreal. It sounds like that town is one big laugh as far as the justice system goes.
The man should have at the very least, been fire & had his guns taken away.
The Mayor needs to be booted out as does the Judge.
Does anyone know the Mayor’s email address?
I also think the local SPCA failed these cats as well & while they are “outraged” at the verdict I don’t recall seeing in the previous articles where they were willing to help.
In fact it seems the first article said they denied helping the cat.
These people need to be removed from the power they have, most especially the animal control guy, he sounds likes he’s an abuser & not far away from making a human his next target of his need for power play.
Don’t you wonder what’s in the water in that town? Those folks are all nuts!
No animal should be mistreated and those that are found out should get at least the same punishment as those who harm children, the elderly, and the defenseless.
Because that is what it comes down to when we talk about animals (most especially those we, humans, have domesticated). These animals have been bred to depend upon us for care, food, etc. That we should have people who would use that bred in defenseless to be the targets of senseless acts of cruelty is barbaric.
Those that harm animals are, i.m.h.o., ’souless’ psychopaths who are incapable of feeling empathy or sympathy. They are lower than animals because they do harm for the mere fact that they can.
The judge that let the guy off is no better. He should not be re-elected. Have him tarred, feathered and run out of town, right along side the subhuman creature he let go without any punishment.
I hope someone shoots his useless ass while he’s defenseless.
I hope that the people in this city take a stand with this judge and put his butt in chek…by lettin him know that as a community they are NOT GONNA tolerate this dam neanderthal behavior concerning animals and first off all those animal control officers shouldnot even be able to carry a real gun they should only be allowed a tranquilizer gun……..some of ours around here look like there strung out most of the time and these fools are given guns…..And last but not least…WHO IN THE NAME OF HEAVEN APPLIES FOR AN ANIMAL CONTROL JOB ANYWAY?……..Oh this article just enrages me…i deal with feral cats all the time and if you treat them with respect they are not gonna bother anyone!!!!! It sound like to me that its about time that the city has a COMPLETE OVERHAUL IN THAT DEPARTMENT!!!
Well, duh …. Some idiot comes in there threatening a mother, she’s going to try to protect her kittens. If the guy is so terrified by kittens, he should get a job in a prison. Then he’d have a reason to be scared.
This officer should not be allowed to continue to work with animals! I also fault the residents in the building for not properly “adopting” the mother cat and her kittens and keeping her safe. If they were so fond of her, why didn’t someone take her in and care for her? Or find a home for her? She was obviously friendly and social. This tragedy would not have happened if the cat had not been left to fend for herself in the basement of this apartment complex, where she had no way to defend herself from a stupid and cruel man with a gun.
What! thats horrible. he should be kicked off the force. thats disgusting he obviously was hideing something, like him knowning they weren’t rabbid or else he wouldnt of just dumped them he would of brought them back, he should be in jail thats just disgusting. and the judge what the hell? Obviously they need a knew one because its just like an owner saying “oh i thought my kittens and the mother were “rabid”so im just going to shoot them”. and that owner would be arrested so what makes this guy any different! It doesnt!
WHO THE FURRY **** GAVE THIS IDIOT A GUN! SINCE WHEN DO ANIMAL CONTROL CARRY GUNS ANYWAY.