Carlisle, 20, apparently drowned the rabbits after they were both badly injured during a fight with each other. She later posted a photo, in which she smiled while holding the dead rabbits, on her Facebook page.
Carlisle's attorney, Ron Gatts, suggested that his client was not getting a fair shake, implying that store policy may have played a role in the incident and insisting that Carlisle was in fact "an avid animal lover."
For its part, Petland was quick to distance itself from Carlisle and her case, noting in a statement that the Akron store "was individually owned and operated by a local franchisee" whose agreement with the company had been terminated in light of the animal-cruelty allegations. "Petland will in no way, shape or form tolerate any abuse of animals in its care," the statement continued. "We are outraged at this gross violation of Petland's animal care standards."
Last month, Carlisle abruptly changed her plea to guilty, despite Gatts' inclination to bring the case to trial.
"As much as I wanted to try the case, [Carlisle] said, 'I did it,' which I think she has said from the beginning, and she said, 'I just want it to be over with','' the attorney told the Akron Beacon Journal.
Carlisle said she has gotten death threats and there were protests at her home and school after she was arrested for drowning two injured rabbits at the former Petland store in the Chapel Hill Mall. She had no criminal record.
"I asked her why she was smiling in the photograph of herself holding the dead rabbits," said Akron Municipal Judge Stephen Fallis. "She said her boss at the pet store told her to hold up the rabbits and smile, so she did. She said she knew she had done something horrible, but that her psychology classes taught her to smile when you're having a bad day."
Fallis said the woman explained that she found two injured rabbits in the cage that had been fighting. She asked her supervisor what to do.
"She said the supervisor told her to 'baptize them, and made up and down motions' which she believed meant to drown them," Fallis said. "She said she drowned them in a bucket."
Carlisle told Fallis the supervisor snapped the photo and then sent it to Carlisle's cell phone. Carlisle said she was upset over what she had done and tried to send it to a friend but accidentally posted it on his Facebook page.
[So did she also accidentally post the comments that were included with the photo? How does that happen? You accidentally post a photo along with the following comments:
On Carlisle's Facebook page, she confirmed a friend's guess that she had drowned these two rabbits and wrote, "[T]he manager took the pic for me. [S]he reminded me that there were people outside as [I] was swearing at them to just hurry up and die but then she was so kind as to take this picture."
Although a judge could have sentenced her to up to 180 days in jail, Carlisle received probation. She'll also have to pay a $250 fine and serve 120 hours of community service, the Beacon Journal reported.
(LA Times Blogs - Dec 4, 2009)
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