I hope people reach out to help them with their legal bills.
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Wow⊠I mean seriously the Alabama police are spending time arresting elderly women seeking to reduce the feral cat population by trapping & neutering⊠Thatâs a problem?! Unbelievable. Too bad there arenât nearby barns in need of feral cats to help with rodent poplutions. I wonder who intially reported them. What a shame.
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Surprising isnât it? The police in that town need some education.
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Itâs a great embarrassment, like much of the news out of my home state.
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My husband and I TNR in our area. Technically it is illegal here too, but we have done over 15. We have had to be more careful as our neighbour got very upset when we trapped one of their (unneutered) cats on our property. We contacted them right away and had their cat home within a few hours, but they were not impressed, and I could see them being litigious if we had neutered/vaccinated/chipped their pet. Unfortunately all their cats are just plain tabbies, and we have a plain tabby food thiefâŠso better safe than sorry we assume it is one of theirs. No idea why anyone would be upset about a free vet visit, but people are strange.
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Arrest video (tough guys arenât they, the cops?) ;
They were convicted of trespass, but the whole thing was pretty silly.
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Tnr is one thing. Feeding a cat colony is different. I donât think the trapping was the problem here. Itâs illegal in a lot of places to feed ferals. They are absolutely terrible for native species.
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No one in Wetumpka is giving two flips about native species. This is a power trip about two ladies feeding and trapping cats and annoying âthe neighbors.â
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Yes I guaranty in Wetumpka if you want to fight dogs they are A OK with that. And if you want to take your dog, cat, kittens, puppies to the local dumping spot and abandon them there to starve - they are fine with that too. Just donât try to fix a problem in a humane way. That is not OK.
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While I do think they were overall doing a good thingâŠ
âThe police chief said the women had previously been warned not to feed stray animals.â
âWetumpka Police Chief Greg Benton has said feeding the cats had created a nuisance because it attracted more animals to the area. He said both women had been ârepeatedlyâ warned to stop prior to being arrested.â
Iâm guessing the owner of the property they were feeding/trapping on did not want them there, warned them to stay off the property, and they would not.
This covers the facts;
Next thing is a Go Fund Me page 
Edit.
Well - hush my mouth; they have done it already; https://www.gofundme.com/f/cat-ladies-of-wetumpka-defense-fund
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Thatâs just ridiculous⊠If you spay and neuter cats, you will have fewer cats. They should be thanking them. It sounds more like a personal disagreement that escalated.
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I bet the property owner saw possums and raccoons eating the food they were leaving out.
Itâs also possible the property owner wanted the cats removed, not re-released.
Itâs not up to the cat ladies, as it wasnât their property and they were asked to stop, multiple times. What should the next step have been?
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Iâm with endless on this. They trespassed and the feeding/trapping also caused damage to public and private property. Police also testified that they never intended on arresting but that they (the 2 arrested) refused to leave the property they were trespassing on.
Quotes from the above article:
âRichie Beyer, chief operations officer for the county, testified that feeding the cats attracts more cats and other animals, including buzzards, that then damaged county and privately owned vehicles in the county-owned parking lot where the feeding and attempted trapping took place.â
âAlston was trespassed from the lot early on June 25, Wetumpka police officers told her, because she was creating a nuisance by feeding and trapping the cats. Officers returned about a half-hour later to find Alston still at the lot retrieving a trap. By then, Roberts had joined her.â
âOfficer Jason Crumpton testified under examination by prosecutor Brad Ekdahl that he âhad no intentionsâ of arresting the women when he returned to the area the second time. He said the women gave him no choice but to arrest them after they failed to follow directions to leave the area.â
Anyways, they werenât arrested for feeding/trapping cats. They were arrested for criminal trespassing, disorderly conduct and interfering with government operations. I get wanting to help reduce the stray cat population but you canât break other laws in doing so.
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Sadly I think that is the main reason they were arrested . I didnât watch all the video but I did pick up on the fact that they had been repeatedly told to stop and they were trespassing.
I do believe the cops were way out of line to arrest them and talk to them that way. You can do your job and treat people with kindness. Gives the good, respectful cops a bad rap.
