Bucky, 2007:
Officers arrested Gregory, 23, late Friday on accusations that he was responsible for decapitating Mr. Buck, a tame deer that visitors could pet at Bear Creek Pioneers Park’s wildlife sanctuary.
The only thing I can say about this that’s at all upbeat is that Bucky fought back.
**Sigh…**
Every time I see a news item like this I can’t help but think that there is something very seriously wrong with someone who kills an animal – especially in a gruesome way, as in this case – for pleasure. Some basic lack of empathy for other living things that I always suspect is sign of worse things to come, if it continues.
I realize that there are some people who form very strong emotional bonds with animals (I’m one of them) and some who don’t -that’s not a judgment on anybody, just an observation – but this is something else altogether.
Ugh.
Hi John — Ugh. Yes indeed. And this guy is 23 years old. Gotta wonder how early this kind of behavior started manifesting…
Detestable. And yes, Poli, I wondered the same thing, wondering if a lot of cats in his neighborhood had gone missing the last 23 yrs. The bigger issue, and one I think about a lot, is if we find an 8 yr old sociopath with clear markers for this and even more odious behavior, what do we do with him. He is, after all, still a kid. It’s a real problem for me, ethically and morally. Someone had to have seen something wrong here, why was nothing done? Another case of someone slipping through the cracks?
Damn, now I’m gonna see that deer’s face in my head all day.
Funny that you mention about younger problem kids we see, and what to do about them. I wrote about exactly that once, at the Chronicle.
Link
You nailed it in that piece. When my grandson was not quite 2, my daughter was taking care of a friend’s son, who was 5 for a little extra money. That child was my best friend’s grandson. This kid was brilliant and the only 5 yr old I’ve ever been afraid of. My best friend, it had to have broken her heart, took my daughter aside and told her not to take care of the boy anymore because “sooner or later he’ll hurt” my grandson. Today that boy is nearing his teens, has problems in school, is still brilliant. What we figured out about him was that he didn’t see any problem with hurting people or things, but he was certainly smart enough to know that others/WE would think there was something wrong with it. Classic sociopathy. We didn’t know what to do then, and still don’t. School counsellors were no help, psychologists were no help, psychiatrists were no help. I feel for the parents. This parent and her mother saw a problem but found no where to get help. As for kids running around with swastikas tattooed on their necks, the parents have less deniability, but I for one can’t fault them if they ran into the dearth of help that we did.
I keep hoping the day doesn’t come that I get a phone call that that little boy is going to jail.