{"id":11224,"date":"2012-03-01T12:59:36","date_gmt":"2012-03-01T20:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=11224"},"modified":"2012-03-27T13:29:01","modified_gmt":"2012-03-27T20:29:01","slug":"minister-city-council-member-shoots-neighbor-cat-dead-with-pellet-gun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/?p=11224","title":{"rendered":"Minister, city council member shoots neighbor cat dead with pellet gun"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"2012.0229.susiecat_2\"<\/a>

Susie, a 10-year-old male cat is captured by 12-year-old Daylynn Pannette's camera phone before Monday.<\/p><\/div>\n

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker
\nLewis County Sirens news reporter
\n<\/strong>
\nCentralia City Council member and pastor of a downtown church Bill Bates says he’s guilty of “making wrong use of judgement” when he shot and killed a neighbor cat with a pellet gun earlier this week.<\/p>\n

Bates, 60, said he was surprised the animal died as when he used the air-powered rifle on a possum in his yard, he had to shoot it three times to kill it.<\/p>\n

He didn’t mean for the cat to die, Bates said, he was just tired of it dropping “deposits”, messing in his beauty bark and walking on his clean cars.<\/p>\n

Bates said he saw it walk behind the arborvitae shrubs and fired into the arborvitae shrubs. Usually he’s 30 or 40 yards away, he said.<\/p>\n

“If I’d have done it on purpose and wanted to kill the stupid thing, I wouldn’t have told anyone,” Bates said yesterday.<\/p>\n

Bates came across as frustrated that the news of the incident and criticism of him had, in his words, gone viral on the Internet.<\/p>\n

It happened on Monday on the 900 block of Ham Hill Road in Centralia and he confessed right away, Bates said.<\/p>\n

“I went to the owners, I apologized, offered retribution,” he said. “I’ll be glad to buy them a cat. I’ll bring ’em an Easter lily if I have to.”<\/p>\n

Dusty Pannette and her family are devastated, and shocked, following the knock on their door and the news their 12-pound “Susie” was dead.<\/p>\n

“We didn’t even know it was bothering this guy,” Pannette said.<\/p>\n

Pannette said the neighborhood is filled with cats and dogs and Susie – who is actually a male – for the past 10 years has been an indoor and outdoor cat, one who often prowled the open pasture behind their houses for mice.<\/p>\n

“Everyone in the neighborhood knows this cat, he’s not a stray, he’s not aggressive,” Pannette said. “We all let our animals roam freely, we never thought twice about it.”<\/p>\n

Pannette said she was stunned and confused when Bates – who she didn’t really know – announced what he’d done and told her he usually shoots at her cat’s feet but this time he “got” him.<\/p>\n

“The words I’m sorry never came out of his mouth,” she said. He just said he felt bad and said he’d buy a new one, she said.<\/p>\n

It has been additionally disturbing to her children, who felt an extra bit of security knowing a minister lived on their block, she said.<\/p>\n

Centralia police declined to comment, acknowledging they took a report, but would not discuss details since nobody had been arrested.<\/p>\n

Officer John Panco said yesterday the case was sent to the city’s attorney to determine if any charges would be filed.<\/p>\n

Both Pannette and Bates say police described to them it’s not criminal to shoot a nuisance animal on your own property.<\/p>\n

Pannette and her husband have spoken with a lawyer and are considering a lawsuit. She’s shared a flyer with her neighbors to warn them there’s “someone on the hill that doesn’t appreciate animals and will fire on them if they come in his yard.”<\/p>\n

If it’s not against the law, it should be, Pannette said.<\/p>\n

The black and white feline has been taken to a local veterinarian to be cremated.<\/p>\n

Bates is serving his fourth year on the city council and is minister at Destiny Christian Center, an Assemblies of God church, on North Tower Avenue.<\/p>\n

Bates said he is sorry, what he did was stupid and he loves animals.<\/p>\n

The police officer can attest to how remorseful, apologetic and cooperative he was, Bates said.<\/p>\n

He realizes he should have spoken to his neighbors about his concerns or, “I should have thrown a rock at it, not shoot it. I’ll never do that again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sharyn\u00a0 L. Decker Lewis County Sirens news reporter Centralia City Council member and pastor of a downtown church Bill Bates says he’s guilty of “making wrong use of judgement” when he shot and killed a neighbor cat with a pellet gun earlier this week. Bates, 60, said he was surprised the animal died as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10],"class_list":["post-11224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-story","tag-by-sharyn-l-decker","tag-news-reporter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11224"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11227,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11224\/revisions\/11227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lewiscountysirens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}