‘Wet, scared, shivering.’ Florida City woman beat cat for 30 minutes, cops say
A Florida City motel employee was taking a nap in one of the rooms when he was suddenly awoken by what he could only describe as a cat’s loud, violent beating in the next room over, police say. Officers rushed over to find a “wet, scared and shivering” feline.
Around 1 a.m. on February 11, Everglades Motel employee Jose Torres heard the commotion from Jemica Monique Walker’s room and her repeatedly yelling, “Don’t do it anymore,” her arrest report read. After listening to the cat’s cries and Walker’s yelling for about 20-30 minutes, Torres called police and noted this wasn’t the first time “something similar happened” in Walker’s room.
Homestead police officers went to Walker’s room, which was open, and began talking with Walker, 48, who police said spontaneously told them that she was trying to discipline her cat, which had gotten its leash entangled with a table and spilled water on the floor, the report read.
She then said she beat the cat for “only” about 30 minutes and “only” used her hands to “physically punish the animal.”
“The cat appeared wet, scared and was shivering on a small leash,” an officer wrote in the report.
Officers spoke with Demara Lemour, who was in another room nearby. Lemour told them she also heard the commotion and the cat crying, police said. She knocked on Walker’s door, who opened up and told her that she was upset with her cat and was disciplining it for spilling water. Lemour saw the cat tied to the table with a black leash.
Miami-Dade Animal Control took the cat from Walker. She was arrested early Wednesday morning at the motel, 605 South Krome Avenue. It’s unclear why police arrested her a week after the incident.
During her arrest, police found a glass crack pipe with cocaine residue, officers said.
Walker is facing charges of possession of cocaine and animal cruelty with intent to injure or kill. As of Wednesday, she remained in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
%20Cropped%20(2).jpg)