Austin Man Faces Felony Charges for Beating Turtle to Death with Hammer — So What?

Fifty-five-year-old Terry Washington was fishing last month in Austin when his friend hooked a snapping turtle on his line.  Long story short here, Mr. Washington took a hammer and beat the turtle to death with it, some joggers (probably hippies) saw him, videoed it and called the police. The hippy joggers told police the turtle "wasn't being aggressive" and "only wanted to get back in the water".

He's now facing a felony charge for animal cruelty AND the police tacked on a fine for hunting without a license.

Here's the video (warning: a turtle does get beaten with a hammer and, apparently, that's a problem for some weeping Nancies):

I'm going to admit to something that, I guess, is now a felony.  I've always enjoyed fishing. Usually, my fishing was done in ponds or small lakes on property my dad or grandpa owned. We'd hook snapping turtles all the time.

Not on purpose, though. We were always trying to catch bass, crappie or the odd catfish now and then. Whenever we did hook a snapping turtle it was unintentional AND a big annoyance. So, we'd pull the turtle out and, since the hook was still in his mouth, we'd usually cut it's goddamned head off with a filet knife. So, I know of which I speak.

This is a case of effete granola-crunchers not knowing the reality of accidentally catching a snapping turtle. There's no such thing as a "non-aggressive" snapping turtle, especially when it's got your hook in it's mouth. If you were foolish enough to try to take your hook out of a live snapping turtle's mouth, you would run the considerable risk of going home with fewer fingers. These are some ornery sumbitches. Secondly, we couldn't just cut the line and let the turtle go because it would still have your hook and we weren't rich enough to go and buy new hooks every time we went fishing. Thirdly, since these were bodies of water that we owned, we wanted to get rid of snapping turtles whenever we could. If you throw it back, you run the risk of catching the same snapping turtle over and over again.

Also, why is everyone upset that he killed a turtle? If he was fishing, wasn't he planning on killing all the fish he caught? To my knowledge, turtles don't have a vastly higher brain function that would make killing them worse than killing fish.

I would almost expect this namby-pamby-ishness from...ugh...joggers. But the cops? Come on, guys. There must be at least a few fishermen on the APD who could interject some sanity into this case. Unless, Austin has slid completely off the P.C. scale and is now only hiring vegans to patrol on bicycles. Hey! Put out an APB! I think I just saw someone step on a cockroach!