Kitten thrown off bridge to its death in SC

SOUTH CAROLINA -- A kitten was thrown off a bridge into traffic on I-26 after a North Charleston pet store says they couldn't buy the pet.

Just after 3:30 Thursday afternoon, a woman who works at Petco in North Charleston says two men came into her store trying to sell a kitten they had just found. Minutes later that same cat was allegedly tossed off an overpass straight into oncoming traffic.

"They said, ‘Well we are going to go throw it in a dumpster or something'" explained Ellie Amani. Amani works at the Petco on Rivers Avenue and says two African American men, who appeared to be in their 20s, tried to sell the store a cute, but malnourished, black and white stray kitten.

Amani says she told the two men that Petco doesn't adopt, nor buy, stray animals - but because she was worried for the kitten's life, she offered to adopt it herself.

Amani told News 2, "They grabbed the kitten and said, ‘Oh no, we are just going to go throw it in a dumpster or something.' And I told them, ‘Well can I have it?' And they immediately replied, ‘No.'"

Amani says she then told the men to please take the kitten to the Animal Society of Charleston which is nine tenths of a mile away…just a three minute drive from Petco. But somewhere in between Petco and the Animal Society, a person driving on I-26 West saw the black and white kitten fly off the overpass and down onto the busy highway.

Pearl Sutton is the Senior Director of the Charleston Animal Society and said they got a call around the same time of the Petco incident that a kitten was throw off the bridge. "It was dead on the side of the interstate and this is a tragedy that never has to happen. It's just so inhumane to end a life like this. This life could have been saved. This life never had to end," said Sutton.

Amani even came to the shelter when she got off work looking for the kitten, and that's when she learned what had happened. "He said, ‘Oh we just got a call about someone seeing a black and white kitten being thrown off the bridge.' My heart just dropped and I wanted to cry," said Amani.

She then went and found the kitten on the side of the highway. Amani says it was the same one that had just been in her store.

 Officials from the Animal Society say a case number has already been filed with North Charleston Animal Control. The director of the animal society in North Charleston says an animal cruelty investigator will be working on the case as of Friday morning and they hope to bring the people responsible to justice.

 Sutton says if the person or persons are caught, they plan to prosecute to the full extent of the law.

(WBTW - Oct 3, 2014)