CASE HISTORIES

Here a few stories — with and without happy ending — about our “clients”. Please click on the links below for details:

True story and what we can do about it

Late night in Rohmoser, San Jose, one of the supposedly up-scale residential areas in the city, a family had found a cat which had somehow made its way into their house. Claiming that the cat had scratched the sofa and peed on the floor, the family (mother, father and a 15 years old son) began to chase the cat around the house trying to catch it. A few minutes later their older son and two of his pals arrived. They then managed to catch the by now absolutely terrified animal, proceeding to beat it senseless. They then kicked it like a soccer ball for over 20 minutes, all this accompanied by the mother’s proud applause.

Three people witnessed this event — one Nicaraguan guard, one Costa Rican and one German neighbor. The guard interfered when the group started setting the barely alive cat on fire. He didn’t want them to do it in his patrol section. The Costa Rican neighbor was there and wanted to stop it, but he was too terrified and afraid of the young people. The German neighbor turned away and went home.

Next day the guard was asking around if the neighborhood was disturbed by the “party” and was giving details to everybody who wanted to listen. He also showed the neighbors where the dead body was.

The cat cannot be saved, the witnesses didn’t interfere, and they even didn’t call the police. This is very disappointing to me. But there is still a way to get the guilty people to justice. There are pictures of the dead cat, and there are 3 people who could testify in the courts. Looks like a pretty good case, as we live in a country which has laws protecting animals and has organizations that could help with cases like this. But unfortunately our case is not as strong, as it appears. The guard doesn’t want to testify, as he is afraid to lose his job. The German neighbor doesn’t want to be involved, as “she lives in Costa Rica for 15 years and knows exactly how ineffective the legal system here is.” And the Costa Rican neighbor still hasn’t decided if he really wants to be involved.

There are other neighbors there, and they are angry and they are trying to do something about what happened. But they know the story only by hearsay, so besides being upset they cannot do much, at least legally. So our life goes on like nothing happened.

I can only hope that not only another animal, but also a human being like an uninvited kid for example, will never find their way into these people’s house.

Did you have similar experiences? Please Tell us your story.