Law protects pets of abuse victims
Saturday, April 01, 2006 - Bangor Daily News
AUGUSTA - Gov. John Baldacci signed LD 1881 into law Friday, the first law in the country that gives judges the authority to protect pets when domestic abuse victims seek a protection order.
Baldacci called it "unconscionable" that 76 percent of victims who seek safety at domestic violence shelters report that their abusers either harmed or threatened their pets as a tool to control and intimidate them. The new law can help break that cycle of violence, he noted. [..]
Women and children are not the only victims of domestic abuse. Pets often suffer as they become tools of blackmail for the abuser. The great state of Maine took action this week.
The landmark law not only gives judges the power to include pets on a protection from abuse order but also gives them authority to impose penalties if the order is violated. Those penalties range from a fine to jail time. [..]
Cool. Now judges have a tool as well.
"Violence is violence," he said. "Where there is animal cruelty in the home, chances are someone else is being hurt, too." [..]
Does that logic apply to little boys who blow-up frogs with firecrackers?
Cantara recalled that a woman in Saco who had been abused for years reported to police that her backyard was filled with dozens of dead animals hurt and killed by her abuser.
"We dug that yard up and, to our horror, found a virtual pet cemetery," he said. "Her abuser kept telling her that what had happened to those animals was going to happen to her. This is not a unique case." [..]
A virtual pet cemetary? I wonder if famous author and Maine resident Stephen King knows about this.
But seriously, I think this is a great law to use against those who make life miserable for others (and their pets). It is, however, the only law of its kind. I think you all know what to do.