Man Stomped Baby Geese To Death - Said He Felt Threatened

[matcom]

<snip>

ATTLEBORO, Mass. -- A man who allegedly stomped a Canada goose and its five goslings to death in Massachusetts this weekend is in court Monday on animal cruelty charges.

John Sanders says he's "heartbroken" over the incident. He tells The Boston Globe he felt threatened because the geese were acting aggressively and moving toward him, hissing and beating their wings.

Police say Sanders, an industrial engineer from Rhode Island, slipped and fell in mud after an adult goose hissed at him.

According to the police report, Sanders got up angry and went into a rampage, chasing and kicking the geese.

http://www.wftv.com/irresistible/4465508/detail.html

[MrScorpio]

1. What an evil fucker

Burn his cowardly ass

[ET Awful]

6. I say shackle him hand and foot and throw him to a bunch of geese

fucking sicking bastard.

[Burma Jones]

2. Good thing he doesn't live in Florida

if he feels threatened by a Goose Hiss.........

[unblock]

10. florida's new "stand your ground" would let him shoot the geese, right?

:rofl:

[Burma Jones]

11. Yes, and maybe anyone "supporting" the geese

It just goes to show how low a threat threshold some folks possess

[7th_Sephiroth]

26. the geese in florida are bastards

they are violent, the ones in my neighborhood, i have been bitten twice by em

[mike_c]

3. I hope they give him some anger management training...

...while he's in jail.

[sniffa]

4. bwahahaha

i actuaLLy Laughed out Loud, whiLe reading this on the train.

"no! the baby geese are gonna kiLL me!"

[Blue Diadem]

5. Oh geesh..all he had to do was walk or run away from them..

I have done the latter..those Moms and Dad's can run pretty fast and will protect their nests and their babies.

Hope he gets jail time.

[flvegan]

14. Based on another article in The Boston Globe

the goslings were killed in different areas (lawn and parking lot). Sounds like maybe he chased them...

[Blue Diadem]

17. That's just awful

I can't imagine what he'd do to a child if he got ticked off.

[Spinzonner]

7. That's a real Downer

[redqueen]

8. This guy has some serious problems and needs to be locked up.

What if some schoolkids start teasing him, or God forbid hurl a ball his way?

[Mutley]

9. what an asshole

maybe if he had stayed away from the babies the mama would have left him alone. ugh

[havocmom]

12. Gotta do something about serious mental health care in this nation

Start in D.C. and work out from there.

[sinkingfeeling]

13. Maybe it was is reaction to 4 years of "Be Afraid!", "Be Afraid!".

Orange Terror Alert! Terrorists are trying to nuke us! Etc. However, I have no sympathy for him and hope he gets jail time for animal cruelty.

[NorthernSpy]

15. the Boston Globe has some more jaw-dropping details

From the Globe.

Before he left for work Saturday, John A. Sanders asked his mom what would make her Mother's Day. She said she wanted to visit the zoo.

Later that very day...

''My life demonstrates that I'm not a callous, hard, uncaring sort of person," Sanders said yesterday in a telephone interview. ''I'm heartbroken over what happened. I felt threatened, and then when I slipped, I felt desperate because they were all around me."

Surrounded! By little baby geese.

Sanders's mother said the episode is out of character for her son, an industrial engineer who volunteers at a soup kitchen, goes to church every Sunday, and helps care for the family's aging golden retriever.

Mommy also says that her boy is a "wonderful son" who has a "kind and caring and compassionate nature".

Don't they all?

Officer Steven Beaudet of Attleboro police, a military veteran who served in Afghanistan, said police were shaken by the gruesome scene.

Officer Beaudet calls the attack on the geese "very disturbing".

The goose stomper has a degree from Columbia, and has done a lot of volunteer work in Africa. His mother says that her "Christian family is rallying around her son." Mostly, they hope to save him from jail.


My take is that either this guy has a serious bird phobia -- and is too ashamed to admit it -- or the world just got a glimpse of Mr. Caring Son's true nature.

[amazona]

23. he needs a medical evaluation

If the story is accurate, and he is otherwise a good, caring person, he may have a brain disease that caused him to go off like this. Don't laugh. I know someone whose wife snapped like this. Turned out she had M.S. in her brain which I had not even known was possible. She went dangerously insane and died in a scarily short period of time, I'm thinking a year or so. I know most folks with M.S. live a very long time and don't have this reaction, it was an education to me that something like this could happen at all.

If I were him, I'd be looking into it with a neurologist and not just as part of my defense either. Baby geese are little balls of fluff. They are not scary. To see them as something scary and threatening could be a serious symptom.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[tk2kewl]

16. There are way too many of these damn geese anyway.

Nature out of balance.

[flvegan]

20. Does that make this okay, then?

[tk2kewl]

21. not particularly, but it is about as newsworthy as the runaway bride

[smbolisnch]

24. What is your point? That it is ok?

I hope that was sarcasm.

[RandomKoolzip]

18. I blame Bush.

[curse10]

19. I was so angry when I read that in the paper this morning

I hope this fucker gets jail time.

[kwassa]

22. Geese can be aggressive; the mother was protecting the goslings

She percieved a threat, hissed at him, he went ballistic.

We live near a small lake that has several hundred Canadian geese year round. There are no natural predators, and it is overpopulated. The geese wander into street traffic quite often, as they are not the most intelligent of creatures. They also leave their wonderful goose droppings all over walking paths and everyone else.

I have geese hiss at me once in awhile. They are sizable birds, and could cause some damage if they did attack. They have a nasty sounding sqawk, too. This entire region is overpopulated with geese.

Not to justify what this guy did. The geese are an incredible nuisance, however.

[amazona]

25. yes adult geese can be aggressive

At times I've been a little intimidated when large geese approach me for food. How soon they forget. They are supposed to be the food, right? :-) But I don't know how anyone could be scared of the babies. They are too cute.

There are definitely many areas of geese over-population where the geese should be harvested and provided to food kitchens or even just to people who willing to buy a roast goose.

This guy just didn't handle it right.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72