Cat Urine Criminal

Big Gary sent me a link to this story with the comment, "I'm not sure who was haoxing whom, but something strange is going on here. If there's a hot black market for cat urine, I think I may be rich." From Yahoo! News:
Cynthia Hunter spent almost two months in jail over a vial of cat urine. Hunter, 38, was arrested Aug. 15 on a charge of petty theft after she was accused of stealing from a Wal-Mart store. Deputies added charges of possession of a controlled substance after finding a vial containing a yellow substance in her purse. A drug field test suggested the substance was methamphetamine, The Tampa Tribune reported. Hunter had protested, saying the substance was dehydrated cat urine for her son's science project and that it had been purchased at an animal clinic. She was released Thursday after lab tests found the substance was, in fact, cat urine.
I once bought coyote urine. It was supposed to scare away animals such as opossums, though it didn't work on the opossum living in our attic. Maybe cat urine does something similar. I can't believe it took the police almost two months to figure out that the substance actually was cat urine.

Law/Police/Crime

Posted on Wed Oct 10, 2007


Comments

"I can't believe it took the police almost two months to figure out that the substance actually was cat urine"

While TV-series like CSI make many people think such a test is a matter of a minute, the truth is that police laboratories often have more tests to do than they can deal with. So it takes time before a certain test request can be processed.
Posted by LaMa  on  Wed Oct 10, 2007  at  02:35 AM
The smell of cat urine actually frightens away rats and mice. That might induce people to buy some. But the best solution, in my opinion, is to have a real cat.
Posted by Christophe Thill  on  Wed Oct 10, 2007  at  09:46 AM
Cat urine won't scare opossums. The latter attack cats. Sadly, I have the vet bills (and my grouchy yet still alive cat has the scars) to prove this.
Posted by RainOubliette  on  Wed Oct 10, 2007  at  02:03 PM
Hmmm, maybe the vials of cat urine are for baiting opossum traps.
The tasty 'possum was once known in the southeastern U.S. as "the poor man's chicken," or, as we say in Texas, "the poor man's armadillo."
Posted by Big Gary  on  Wed Oct 10, 2007  at  05:22 PM
I think you're all missing the real point here. Either a) the police field-tests are defective enough to come up positive on cat urine or b) the police themselves are too inept to run a field-test correctly.

She probably lost her job over this. You ever have a friend call in to tell your boss you can't make it because you're in the hoosegow? For 50 days?

Cases like this are actually abundant (non-drug substances being mistaken by cops for drugs to the tune of jail time) and the response is almost always the same: "Oops, our mistake - out you go," and no compensation for the victim of system abuse.

Just another example of why we must end the unjust persecution of American citizens who use (or don't use, in this case) drugs. End the war on drugs.
Posted by Fuzzfoot  on  Thu Oct 11, 2007  at  11:48 PM
Or perhaps the cat was on methamphetamine?

It would certainly explain the odd behaviour of some of the cats in my neighbourhood.
Posted by David B.  on  Fri Oct 12, 2007  at  11:47 AM
Try this stuff called 'Nature's Miracle'. You can find it at most pet stores. Spray it where the cat urinated after cleaning...it's a neutral scent to them and they don't feel the need to mark their territory.
Posted by cat urine odor removal  on  Mon Sep 07, 2009  at  12:16 AM
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