Red Bank police said this week that they were investigating a man who wrote about launching a “feline jihad” to rid his Chattanooga, Tenn., suburb of stray cats.
Writer Max Gerskin wrote a two-part series in the Chattanooga Pulse weekly newspaper saying that the strays fed by a “neighborhood cat lady” have brought filth and disease to his home, and local Humane Society officials haven't been able to stop it.
As a result, he wrote, “I've officially become a trapper and it’s time to take a walk to the river.”
A neighbor, Jean Watts, told the Associated Press that Gerskin has set traps in his yard and posted signs in the neighborhood alluding to dead cats.
Watts also said some of the stray cats she normally sees have gone missing in recent weeks.
Gerskin has posted an online response. He wrote that he has not been trying to kill stray cats and was using Humane Society traps to help get the stray cats to safe homes.
However, Humane Education Society of Chattanooga director Guy Bilyeu said Monday, Sept. 11, there was no record that Gerskin had any of the organization’s traps.