I hadn’t heard of this story before so I went back to get more info. I feel there is some very relevant details in the story. I thought this would be at a rifle range and someone just went and killed the cat, but I think the actual story is much worse.

From Bakersfield.com 29 MAR 2024

Bowen told The Californian on Friday afternoon she happened to come upon the incident while riding her bicycle along Mirror Drive shortly after 11 a.m. Wednesday. She said she looked over to the pistol range and saw the three men “stalk the cat.”

“The cat was sort of looking at them like, ‘What do you want from me,’ and it would sort of trot a little bit,” she said. “Next thing I know, they drew their pistols.”

She heard three shots she said were fired by just two of the people. One of the men did not seem to her to have been involved or “on board” with the attack, as she put it. She estimated that the shots were fired at a distance of about 7 feet.

Bowen, stated in her online post that the shooters did not kill the animal she described as a small black cat, but that the three men “watched while it writhed in pain.”

When she called out to them asking, “What are you guys doing to the cat? You just shot it?" one of the three is heard responding, “It was damaging the property.”

She said one of the people watched over the cat as it suffered, then picked it up and carried it away. Another appeared to her to bend down and recover rounds that had been fired at the animal. Bowen added that the men would not identify themselves when asked.

California law states that anyone “who maliciously and intentionally maims, mutilates, tortures, or wounds a living animal, or maliciously and intentionally kills an animal, is guilty” of a felony or misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail or a fine of not more than $20,000, or both.

Online commenters expressed outrage at the shooting, with one writing, “If they would do this to an innocent animal who knows what they do while on duty.”