Dec. 26 – Accidentally hitting and killing a cat on the street can lead to a misdemeanor charge in Ohio under certain circumstances.
A man in Dayton recently found out.
Dayton police officers on patrol on Nov. 7 saw a car run a stop sign.
When officers tried to stop the driver, he did not stop. While fleeing police, the driver ran over and killed a cat in the street, the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Finally, the driver parked the vehicle. He got out and ran, but police were able to catch up and arrest him.
The driver, a 22-year-old from Harrison Twp., was indicted Dec. 3 by a Montgomery County Common Pleas Court grand jury on charges of failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer, cruelty to companion animals, obstructing official business and a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest.
The driver is free in terms of electrical monitoring at home.
In 2016, the Ohio General Assembly passed the so-called “Goddard’s Law,” which gave prosecutors a choice, depending on the facts of the case, whether to charge someone with a first-degree felony or a new fifth-degree felony for causing ” serious bodily injury” to a companion animal, according to a letter from the Ohio Legislative Service Commission.
The Ohio Supreme Court expanded the state’s animal cruelty law to protect all cats and dogs in October, when it unanimously ruled that the law applies regardless of whether the dog or cat is owned or “kept.”
