The district attorney’s office in Sacramento County, Calif., has decided to drop charges against two Department of Health and Human Services workers accused of cat abandonment.
In August, witnesses reported seeing two county workers using an official van to dump a box of kittens in a field. But according to a two-page statement released by prosecutors Sept. 26, the employees had a plausible explanation for what happened.
According to the statement, the situation began when the two employees went to clean out a home where children were removed because of poor conditions. The items removed included two cats kept in a box.
The workers loaded a county van with 11 bags of garbage and the boxed cats, with the garbage slated to be taken to a dump and the cats bound for the county animal shelter.
During the ride, however, the top on the cats’ box slid off, and the cats — who were thought to be feral — escaped inside the van. When the two women pulled the van over, the cats sprang from the van into a field in the Rio Linda area.
After trying to find the cats, the women left but reported the incident to supervisors, according to the District Attorney’s statement.