cat colony – Pain In The Bud

South Carolina Man Enlisted His Wife, Mother And 2 Others To Poison Colony Cats, Police Say

The felines were found deceased near open tins of tuna, and laboratory tests confirmed they’d been poisoned.

In early October, a woman who helps manage a colony of stray cats in South Carolina’s Lowcountry stopped by to feed them and was distraught by what she saw.

Six cats lay dead not far from several open tins of tuna. After the woman called for help and a larger group searched the area, they found the bodies of seven more cats and three opossums, the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office said.

The cats were spayed/neutered and managed by volunteers from Lowcountry Trap, Neuter and Release Network, meaning their population was controlled and they were routinely monitored and given veterinary care.

Tests showed the cats were poisoned, according to the Professional Veterinary Pathology Services in Columbia and the Michigan State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.

While police were looking into the poisoning, they got a tip that a local man had been complaining about the cats and claiming they were a nuisance.

On Thursday, police charged 28-year-old Andrew Dock and 45-year-old Charles Waylon Ulmer with 13 counts of felony ill-treatment to animals with torture and one count of conspiracy. Dock’s wife, Sara Rose Dock, 23, and his mother, Laura Mary Dock, 61, were charged with conspiracy along with Michael Jeffrey Kemmerlin, 30. All five suspects live in or near Summerville, a town about 25 miles northwest of Charleston.

Each felony count is punishable by as many as five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, per South Carolina penal code.

Mugshots — Credit: Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office

Dock was the ringleader of the group, according to police, and enlisted the others to help him poison the cats.

“Anyone that is capable of putting out poison and creating that level of pain and suffering is a concern to me as a human in our community,” Carol Linville, founder of a local nonprofit called Pet Helpers, told Lowcountry news station WCSC. ”That is a dangerous person. If they can do it to a cat, they can do it to a dog or do anything else that they deem they don’t want around.”

Locals involved with colony management and animal rescue praised the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office for seeing the investigation through and arresting the suspects.

“The fact that the law enforcement took this seriously and really wanted to see justice and really do their due diligence to make sure that justice is really coming for these cats. I am, I’m very grateful,” said Kayte Williams, one of the women who cared for the colony. “Hopefully nothing like this happens again because the public will know if this happens, you will be prosecuted, you will be charged and you are not going to get away with it.”

Andrew Dock Sarah Rose Dock — Andrew and Sara Rose Dock. Credit: Facebook

On his social media accounts, Dock describes himself as a former welding instructor at Horry-Georgetown Technical College originally from Newark, New Jersey.

All five suspects were released after posting bond, according to the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office. It wasn’t immediately clear if they had retained lawyers, or if they were given return dates for preliminary hearings.

Alabama Cat Ladies Sue City Officials Over Arrest, Conviction For Trapping Cats

The women were arrested for managing a cat colony in the summer of 2022, convicted in December, then won a subsequent appeal in April of 2023. Now they’ve filed a lawsuit against the police and mayor involved in the saga, alleging false arrest and malicious prosecution.

Two women who were arrested for trying to manage a colony of stray cats have filed a lawsuit against the mayor, police chief, assistant chief and three officers involved in the ugly incident.

The July 2022 arrest drew nationwide outrage and condemnation as police responded in force to a complaint that Beverly Roberts, 86, and Mary Alston, 61, were trespassing in a wooded area and trapping cats. Body camera footage showed police treating the women like violent criminals, the police response itself was disproportionate, and the police chief doubled down on his insistence that the women deserved to be treated harshly even after damning footage showed the officers laughing about “beatin’ up on some old ladies.”

Now Roberts and Alston have sued Wetumpka Mayor Jerry Willis, Police Chief Greg Benton, the assistant chief and three officers, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.

Noting that the women were paying out of their own pockets to help manage the stray cat population, the paper detailed the allegations in the civil suit:

“The suit alleges that Willis directed their arrests and that Benton and Reeves acted on the mayor’s orders. The women had angered city officials for “being vocal” about the care of animals in the city and appearing at several city council meetings to complain that the city was not enforcing anti-animal cruelty ordinances on the books, specifically the law banning the chaining or tethering of dogs, the lawsuit states.

The suit argues that the women were arrested under false circumstances. The women were originally charged with criminal trespassing.”

Footage of the summer 2022 arrest showed officers handling the women roughly, jabbing their fingers in their faces, threatening them with additional charges and barking at them to move more quickly.

The women were taken aback.

“I’m teetering on going to jail for feeding cats?” Alston asked in body camera footage of the police response.

Another officer towered over Roberts, jabbing a finger at her and warning it was “going to get ugly” if she didn’t move more quickly before eventually cuffing her.

bravecop — A Wetumpka police officer wags a finger at Roberts, who was 84 years old at the time, before handcuffing her hands behind her back and rifling through her personal possessions.

After a show trial in municipal court in late 2022, in which Roberts and Alston were convicted of trespassing by a judge appointed by Mayor Jerry Willis, the women appealed. Despite the conviction, the municipal trial resulted in the release of damning information, including the fact that it was Willis himself who called the police on Roberts and Alston, that he did so because he didn’t like their complaints about the way the city handled animal issues, and that he instructed the police to arrest the women before they arrived in four patrol cars and had a chance to assess the situation.

Willis called the police after spotting Alston’s car near a county-owned plot of land, and lacking any ordinance that prohibited feeding or trapping stray cats, the police resorted to charging the women with misdemeanor trespassing and “obstructing governmental operations,” a charge roughly equivalent to resisting arrest.

But the land was county-owned, there were no prohibitions on managing cat colonies or conducting TNR (trap, neuter, return), and the footage — which police tried to hide from the public for months before finally caving to legal threats from attorneys for the women — was damning, drawing universal condemnation.

Roberts and Alston appealed, and in April of 2023 county court Judge J. Amanda Baxley accepted a motion by prosecutors to drop the case.

The civil suit “alleges unlawful seizure and detention, excessive force, malicious prosecution, negligence, wantonness and other counts,” per the Advertiser.

Attorneys for Roberts and Alston didn’t specify a dollar amount, but said they’re seeking “compensatory and punitive damages” and legal fees related to the arrest and resulting drama, which has played out for more than a year and a half. A spokesman for the City of Wetumpka did not respond to the Advertiser’s request for comment.

Case Dropped Against Alabama Cat Ladies After Appeal

Prosecutors dropped charges against Mary Alston and Beverly Roberts 10 months after their arrest for caring for a local cat colony.

Prosecutors in Alabama have dropped their case against two women who appealed after they were convicted for feeding and trapping cats in their hometown.

Mary Alston, 61, and Beverly Roberts, 85, were arrested on June 25, 2022 after a bizarre confrontation in which four police officers pulled up in three squad cars and treated the longtime stray caretakers like hardened criminals.

The women were convicted of related charges in December and vowed to appeal the ruling, with their attorneys calling it a case of retributive and petty small town politics.

On Wednesday, Elmore County Circuit Court Judge J. Amanda Baxley accepted a motion by prosecutors to drop the case against Alston and Roberts.

It took their attorneys four months to get the body camera footage from the Wetumpka Police Department, but when they finally obtained and released it to the public in October, Wetumpka became the subject of national scorn for the way its police treated the women.

The footage showed the officers grabbing Alston by her wrists and pulling her out of her car, cuffing Roberts and berating the women for not moving fast enough when they were ordered to collect their traps and leave a wooded area on public land.

Wetumpka cat arrests — A police officer pulls Alston from her car on June 25 before arresting her for trespassing.

When Alston and Roberts expressed shock that police were hassling them, much less threatening them with arrest for managing a cat colony, one officer yelled at Roberts.

“It’s gonna get ugly if you don’t stop,” the cop said, jabbing a finger in Roberts’ face before cuffing her.

One officer told the women they were “too old to be acting this way,” and the footage captured audio of the officers laughing after one of them remarked that it was good there were no witnesses because they would have seen “a bunch of cops beatin’ up on some old ladies.”

There are no laws on the books against feeding cats in Wetumpka, so police charged the women with two misdemeanors each for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Roberts and Alston argued that they were performing a service for the town by caring for the colony of strays. They were conducting TNR (trap, neuter, return) operations in cooperation with local shelters, often at their own expense, to stop the cats from continuing to breed.

Despite the fact that TNR is widely accepted as the most humane and effective way to manage stray cat populations, Wetumpka officials stuck to their allegations that the women were exacerbating a nuisance.

Wetumpka Mayor Jerry Willis doubled down after his department received overwhelmingly negative feedback over the arrests, and in a December trial witnesses described an ongoing argument between Willis, Roberts and Alston over the stray cat issue.

During the trial it was revealed that it was Willis himself who called the police when he spotted Alston’s car near the wooded area. Willis claimed he did not tell the police to arrest the women, but Officer Jason Crumpton testified that he was indeed told to arrest them.

Despite that, municipal Judge Jeff Courtney — who was appointed to his position by Willis and was not elected — found Alston and Roberts guilty of all four charges.

Prosecutors did not say why they dropped the charges on Wednesday, and it was not immediately clear if Roberts and Alston will be allowed to return to caring for the cats, who live in a wooded area on public land not far from the same municipal courthouse where they were earlier convicted. PITB has reached out to the women for comment.

“We are very worried about them,” Roberts told PITB in December. “A few animal lovers have said they would help, but we are not sure this will happen. I’m not sure there is enough food available to hunt. The weather is getting colder, and they need protein.”

‘We Never Broke Any Laws’: In Disbelief Over Their Conviction, Alabama Cat Ladies Vow To Appeal

After a judge barred them from caring for a cat colony, Mary Alston and Beverly Roberts say they’re worried about the strays, who have been left to fend for themselves as winter sets in.

They’d been treated like hardened criminals and insulted by the same police officers who were supposed to protect them, but Beverly Roberts and Mary Alston didn’t think they’d be convicted.

Not for taking care of cats.

“I felt it was very unlikely that we would be found guilty,” Alston told PITB, “with all of the evidence that we had on our side with the body camera footage, and we never broke any laws.”

Roberts and Alston were arrested on June 25, when a trio of police cars pulled up and officers from the Wetumpka, Alabama, police department confronted them. Police body camera footage shows the women, who had been caring for a colony of stray cats, were surprised by the tone and impatience of the officers.

What they didn’t know was that Wetumpka Mayor Jerry Willis was the one who’d in effect dispatched the officers to the small wooded lot owned by Elmore County, grounds that are open to the public. They didn’t know that the officers — who warned the confrontation was “going to get ugly,” told the women they’re “too old to be acting this way” and later joked that they were “a bunch of cops beatin’ up on some old ladies” — were told by the assistant chief of police to arrest them after Willis spotted Alston’s parked car and called the assistant chief directly.

On Tuesday, despite the fact that Willis’ role was revealed during a trial, and despite the fact that Wetumpka has no laws against managing cat colonies or conducting “trap, neuter, return” activities, Alston and Roberts were convicted of a pair of misdemeanors each. Lacking laws to charge them directly, the authorities instead accused the women of trespassing on public land and being uncooperative with the officers.

“That’s what I kept going back to – that feeding and trapping cats is not illegal,” Roberts told PITB. “I was not in the location I was [accused of trespassing], and I was sitting in my car talking to my friend. I was not feeding cats.”

During the trial, Willis and the police argued that they’d already told Alston and Roberts to stop interacting with the cats, and said the pair chose to ignore earlier warnings to stay away from the stray colony. They reiterated their view that the colony is a nuisance.

Roberts said she’s had her disagreements with Willis in the past about the way the town handles animal-related issues, but says Wetumpka’s animal control officer gave her and Alston his blessing to manage the cat colony at their own expense. The animal control officer confirmed that during the Tuesday trial. Public-private partnerships to care for stray cats are common in towns and cities across the US, with many elected leaders welcoming the opportunity to work with local rescues and volunteers.

Roberts and Alston say they plan to appeal their conviction, hoping a county judge will see the charges as “politically motivated” accusations. They pointed out that Wetumpka municipal Judge Jeff Courtney is employed directly by the town, not elected to the post by voters, and they believe they’re more likely to get a fair shake when the people deciding their fate aren’t serving at the pleasure of the people making the accusations.

In the meantime, the cat colony remains in Wetumpka, and the cats haven’t been cared for since late June.

“We are very worried about them,” Roberts told PITB. “A few animal lovers have said they would help, but we are not sure this will happen. I’m not sure there is enough food available to hunt. The weather is getting colder, and they need protein.”

Since the terms of the sentencing include two years’ probation, Alston and Roberts are prohibited from caring for the strays. Alston noted the irony of local authorities claiming TNR was exacerbating a “nuisance” while, in the absence of care and neutering, the free felines “are left to go hungry and continue to multiply and branch out searching for food.”

Roberts says she still finds it hard to believe Wetumpka officials refused to compromise or find a way to establish cooperative care for a community problem.

“I thought that they surely had more pressing issues to attend to,” she said. “I really thought the judge would dismiss it and tell the city to work it out.”

Top image credit Wikimedia Commons

Alabama Women Who Fed And Trapped Cats Found Guilty Despite National Outcry Over Their Arrest

Since there are no laws against trapping, feeding cats or managing colonies, authorities charged the women with trespassing.

Despite widespread condemnation at the arrest and treatment of two Alabama women who were caring for a cat colony, a town judge found the women guilty after a trial Tuesday.

Beverly Roberts, 84, and Mary Alston, 60, were arrested on June 25 after a group of police officers pulled up to a park in three vehicles and ordered the women to leave.

Exasperated at the disproportionate police response — and the non-negotiable demand that they leave a public park during daylight hours — the women protested, and things grew heated when the police told them not to question their authority.

“I’m teetering on going to jail for feeding cats?” an incredulous Alston asked the officers in footage of the arrest, which was released by attorneys representing the women after they fought to obtain it from the Wetumpka Police Department.

Shortly afterward, one of the officers lost his patience when Alston said she needed to collect her traps before leaving.

“You aren’t doin’ it fast enough and now you’re going to jail!” he said, grabbing Alston by the wrists and yanking her out of her car.

The two women had tried explaining to the police that they were caring for a colony of stray cats and that they were using their own funds to conduct trap, neuter and return services, a common activity among cat lovers who care for strays and ferals in towns across the country. In most places, the authorities work with volunteers and local rescues, understanding that TNR programs help control cat populations.

Roberts wasn’t moving fast enough for the police either, and one officer jabbed a finger at her, raising his voice.

“It’s gonna get ugly if you don’t stop!” he said.

Despite complaints from across the country, widespread coverage in local media and national animal-related news sites, Wetumpka Police Chief Greg Benton doubled down on his officer’s response, insisting the cats are a “nuisance” and Roberts and Alston were making the situation worse by managing the colony.

During Tuesday’s municipal trial, it became clear why Wetumpka police had acted so aggressively: They were called by Wetumpka Mayor Jerry Willis, who saw Alston’s parked car near the park and directly phoned the assistant chief of police.

Despite that, and despite admitting he’d had arguments with the women in the past about managing the colony, Willis told Judge Jeff Courtney he didn’t tell the police to respond and didn’t order the arrests.

“They have a right to make those decisions,” Willis said. “I don’t make those decisions for them.”

When attorney Terry Luck directly asked Willis if he’d ordered the arrest or played any part in the trespass order, Willis simply said “I did not.”

However, Officer Jason Crumpton said under oath that the assistant chief told him and the other officers to arrest the women.

After Roberts said, per the Montgomery Advertiser, that she was “not the first person in Wetumpka to feed cats,” merely the first to get caught, Courtney said the women “weren’t convicted for feeding cats.”

“I know,” Roberts said, “because that’s not illegal!”

There are no laws against managing cat colonies or feeding cats in Wetumpka, so police charged Roberts with criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct, and Alston with criminal trespassing and interfering with governmental operations, a charge tantamount to resisting arrest in many states. The charges are misdemeanors. Courtney suspended the 10-day jail sentences that come with convictions at that level and sentenced Roberts and Alston to two years’ unsupervised probation, a $100 fine each and court costs.

Attorneys for Roberts and Alston say they plan to appeal.