Man responds to animal cruelty charges for killing opossum
Alternative content
Man responds to animal cruelty charges for killing...
Evan Schuler was charged with animal cruelty in Danville for killing a opossum. He responds to the charge.“I got out of the vehicle. I went over there and stomped him, stomped his head three or four times. I believe he was dead on the first hit,” said Evan Schuler.
Schuler of Halifax County is being charged with animal cruelty for killing a opossum on June 20th.
He was doing a civilian ride-a-long with a Danville police officer. When they stopped for gas here at the city filling station, he saw the opossum running along the fence.
“He actually chased a opossum down and kicked him to the point where the opossum was killed. It’s a class one misdemeanor for that crime,” said Danville Police Lieutenant Mike Mondul.
Schuler says he’s had problems with opossums in the past with them actually killing dozens of their chickens.
“They’re just a nasty creature. It’s a rodent. They wreak havoc on our place here,” said Schuler.
Schuler says he agrees that he should not have killed the opossum while with the officer, but thinks the charge is unnecessary.
When Schuler was asked if he thought he should be charged with animal cruelty, he said, “No sir, I think that’s a little harsh because animal cruelty is like starving an animal or beating it.“
“We feel the proper thing was done in the end and that was to charge the young man with a crime because it was a crime,” said Mondul.
Schuler has hired a lawyer and plans on fighting the charge at his August twenty-first court date.
“I didn’t realize a opossum was such a valuable animal. If I have to live with this on my record the rest of my life it would be kind of terrible,” said Schuler.
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
I have to say this is a complete waste of money and time to charge Evan Schuler with animal cruelty. All the money to cover it on TV, all the court fines, and the time Danville police could be spending fighting crime and busting drugs is wasted on ridiculous stories like these.
Maybe I’m biased because I personally know Evan, and I believe he is the sweetest, most polite, and down to Earth person I know that would never hurt any person. He is the type of good ol’ boy anybody loves to have around and does not deserve this type of media attention nor emotional stress.
I grew up where he is from, and if I saw a opossum pop out a fence, near me I wouldn’t want that two foot rat gnawing my ankle off and giving me rabies. No sir, this young man did Danville a favor by getting rid of one more pest, he just happened to do it in front two bored police officers.
What’s going to become of the officer that shot and killed an eleven pound elderly Dauschund? An officer shoots and kills a pet, leaving a family distraught- and he is little more than reprimanded. What kind of system is this that charges a young, good man with animal cruelty for stomping one of God’s most hideous and vile creatures, and expects him to pay for it? This charge is punishable by up to a year in jail, and I could not even imagine that happening to him over a filthy opossum. Not to mention having such a charge on his record. He was participating in the ride along in aspiration of become one of Danville’s finest, but we see that they are few and far between.
With the economic crisis and people losing jobs left and right,this country is going to he** in a handbasket and dragging down innocent people with it.
Evan Schuler deserves to have the charges dropped against him. Why aren’t the cops around when little kids are beaten and discarded like trash, or when some criminal sells a pound of crack to a teenager? Its because they’re too busy popping bullets in little dogs and arresting people for idiot charges.
I’m appalled that this is even on the news and that my friend has to deal with all the stress of a news crew and people mocking him. It’s utterly ridiculous.
Let’s see now he claims possums kill and eat his chickens yet he was in a Danville squad “how far” from his home and his chickens? Tell you what if that had been my property that he had done that on I would have also had trespassing charges filed and anything else I could have charged him with. If he wants to take out every possum on his property that is one thing but to jump out of a government car or any other car off of his property and stomp a “MARSUPIAL NOT A RODENT” or any other animal I say have at him with any crime you can charge him with. I wonder if you can charge someone for just being an idiot?
Let’s see: Danville Police Lieutenant Mike Mondul is adamant about pressing charges against this young man for committing a crime. (A misdemeanor, by the way). Why is this Lt. not so adamant about pressing charges against a whole host of crimes that are orders of magnitude worse than what this young mad did.
One has to ask why the issue of the police officer who shot the 11 pound dog to death was not charged with the same crime?
Why was this particular issue was released to the press in the first place?
Were this young man’s rights violated by releasing the information based solely on his being charged but not tried?
Was this an attempt by the Danville police department to focus attention away from the real problems they are having, like the issue of the 11 pound Dachshund being shot by a police officer?
Bad news all around. Wasting police and court resources on this trivia is incredible. In fact, my career has been in resource management and I can say, based on personal experience and education that whoever is running the Danville police department needs some quick lessons on priorities and resource management.
What a waste of time and money, especially in this time of economic trouble. A lecture about the applicable law in this case would have been quite enough and saved the taxpayers a lot of money. Not to mention having police resources available to attend to real crimes.
Advertisement