On shooting house cats: A comment and an anecdote.
First, the comment: People here, myself among them, have remarked upon the supposed visual deficiencies of the hapless policeman; what about the defective eyesight of the original complainers?
The anecdote: I don't think anyone here needs reminding that R. A. Heinlein was a serious, heavy-duty ailurophile. Even so, he contemplated shooting a domestic kitty dead, at least once.
Mr. H was on the Navy pistol team back in the 20s or 30s, I believe. A good shot, in other words. In later life he kept his pistol in the house, but well-greased, disassembled and securely stored. Why not, there were few nasty criminals roaming around in the 50s. IIRC, there were only two occasions which prompted him to assemble the piece and load it:
1.A feral cat was terrorizing, and beating up upon, Mr. H's own kittycat. I imagine that he thought, as do I, that there are good kitties and bad kitties, just as there are good humans and bad humans. I think the outcome was an anticlimax; the bad kitty went away before being shot, and never came back.
2. The icky, creepy BAD occasion: The Tate/LaBianca murders. When he learned that one of Charly Manson's bastard babies was named Valentine Michael Smith, he understandably freaked out and armed himself. After all, he lived not far from the places where the horrors occurred. I'm reminded of the scene in "Bridge on the River Kwai" in which the British army officer belatedly comes to his senses and falls upon the exploder device.
What I'm trying to say here, as someone who is fond of cats, is that yes, sometimes it's not just okay, but praiseworthy to shoot kittykats,
But
MAKE SURE YOU SHOOT THE RIGHT CAT!