Boy, 16, charged after cat, wild animals found injured and dead in Riverdale
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A 16-year-old boy faces charges after a cat and wild animals were found injured and dead in the Riverdale area this month.
Toronto Police allege a youth injured and killed several local wildlife animals along with a community member’s cat between Aug. 1 and Aug. 28.
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Police say the boy was arrested Thursday and charged with two counts of unnecessary pain/suffering or injury to an animal, killing or injuring other animals and failure to comply with conditions.
One community member was so concerned about the animal cruelty that a message was posted — and later deleted — to Reddit’s Toronto board informing residents to keep their cats indoors.
“If you live in Riverdale and have an outdoor cat, keep them inside,” the concerned resident wrote, adding one raccoon was allegedly tortured while another was found dead.
The Redditor also alleged two neighbours’ cats went missing earlier in the week.
“The tracking collar of one cat was found on a garage roof yesterday and the cat was found dead under the shed in the kid’s backyard ….”
Other commenters noted dead raccoons they had seen in the area and wondered if any of them were related to the accused.
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One user said they “saw a skinned animal decomposing in a trash bag on the sidewalk, like someone had just dumped it there.”
They added: “It was disturbing, with the trash bag partly covering its exposed guts through what looked like an incision.”
Investigators believe there may be witnesses to these incidents and are appealing to the public to come forward if they witnessed or captured it on video.
Anyone with information is asked to call police at 416-808-5500 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), or online at 222tips.com.
— with files from Denette Wilford.
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