Surveillance video that was supposed to give investigators clues about a nearby shooting instead led to animal cruelty charges against a Logan business owner, police said.
Police with the Northwest Detective Division were given the tapes to scan for a possible suspect in a shooting that broke out last Tuesday around 1:20 a.m., according to investigators. Footage from one camera allegedly showed a store employee, believed to be the owner, torturing four kittens in the business’ back alley by “throwing them in the air, swinging them violently in circular motions repeatedly and violently rolling them on the ground in a ‘bowling type manner,'” according to a release.
Police alerted the Pennsylvania SPCA, whose Humane Law Enforcement officers executed a search
warrant and recovered a mother cat and two kittens. The animals were taken to the PSPCA’s
Erie Avenue headquarters for treatment.
“The
images caught on the tape were extremely disturbing,” said George
Bengal, head of PSPCA’s Humane Law Enforcement. “He
was swinging the cats by their tails and throwing them around and other
acts of cruelty.”
Yu Zhen Chen, 25, was arrested at a restaurant on the 4900 block of Old York Road in Logan Thursday by Humane Law Enforcement officers and charged with four misdemeanor counts of first-degree animal cruelty. Additional charges are pending
following a forensic evaluation, according to the PSPCA.
