The Assassination of P’Nut: am I next?

Today, P’Nut, the beloved squirrel and namesake of P’Nut’s Freedom Farm in the State of New York, was tragically killed in a home invasion, executed by 10 State Law Enforcement Agents.  I say P’Nut was beloved; I had never actually heard of the furry critter until after he was deceased.  Truth be told, I had never heard of P’Nut’s Freedom Farm before today, either.  But apparently, P’Nut was popular on TikTok and pretty well known, for a squirrel, and occasionally wore a little cowboy hat that looks a little like mine.  So, had I heard of him, I too may have been taken by his cuteness - but again, I had not the privilege of knowing he existed before today.  And again, to my misfortune, I only know of him because of his victimhood in an act of Police brutality.  There is one particular circumstance surrounding poor P’Nut’s demise that simply demands I address it: let us discuss.

Excess violence by Law Enforcement Agencies is a hot topic issue in today’s political climate.  Over the last few years, any death involving Police has come under scrutiny for potential excessive use of force.  Not all of these deaths warrant the scrutiny they elicit; but in some cases, this scrutiny is appropriate.  However, even in blatant excessive force situations, there is hardly ever a situation where the deceased victim is entirely innocent.  It is a fact that not every act of violence or attempt to evade capture warrants death.  However, the initial intervention from the Police typically involves the victim already having committed a crime, and the subsequent death or grave physical injury typically is a bad-judgement reaction by the responding Officer, misjudging the lengths and malicious intent to which the offender is willing to go to escape.  So, bad actor + incompetent or panicky responding Officer can = unwarranted death, if the parties involved are incredibly unlucky.

Note that usually, the victim in these situations is not entirely free from having a hand in his own demise.  He has to 1) already be doing something he ought not to be, 2) panic (or be aggressive or try to prove a point) when the Police inevitably respond, and 3) persist in his violent reaction.  These are the usual circumstances surrounding Police brutality, though the dichotomy of victimhood and perpetrator is a malleable factor.  That is: the victim/perpetrator’s level of victimhood/perpetratorhood varies, depending on what the initial crime was, how bad his reaction to Police was, and how bad the reaction the Police was to him.  

The typical narrative of Police brutality usually follows loosely the circumstances I’ve outlined here.  One thing you almost never hear of, though, is Police intentionally killing the very person or thing they are responding to save.  It seems counter intuitive to see someone in need of aid, and deciding that killing them is leaving them better off than they were.  And yet, this is exactly what happened with poor P’Nut and his friend, raccoon Fred.  

See, P’Nut and Fred had been the indoor pets of their owners for the last 7 years.  As I said in the beginning, P’Nut was widely known on the internet as the spokesperson for the small animal rescue his owners ran.  Apparently though, 7 years of being a house-squirrel is no match for the Karens that NY puts out.  Someone was outraged enough that a husband and wife had a squirrel living in their house for 7 years that she called the Police.  The supposed trauma that this squirrel must have been experiencing, living as he was in such a foreign environment to his natural habitat, triggered a literal raid from the state of NY.  Law enforcement evicted the couple, ravaged their house, and ultimately decided that both the squirrel and his friend must be euthanized.  All because they were living inside a house.

OK, in all honesty, the given reason these animals were killed was to test them for rabies, since the squirrel understandably bit one of the strange Officers invading his home and rough-handling him.  7 years of house-living is enough for nary a Karen nor the entire State department, apparently.

The internet is outraged by the course of these events.  I must confess, though maybe I too have come across at outraged, I couldn’t really care less about the cute squirrel.  I tend to harbor a distrust of animal shelters/rescues (PETA has something like a 98% euthanazation rate, though smaller ones seem to do better): they are both incompetent at what they claim to do and filled with people who are diametrically opposed to all the values I stand for.  However, the rational to kill poor P’Nut and Fred is eerily similar to an issue close to my heart: abortion.

Abortion, and killing P’Nut now apparently, are the two actions wherein otherwise caring individuals claim that precisely because they care, they have to kill the object of their concern.  Kill the child: I don’t want it to be hungry.  Kill the child: the world is messed up, and the child will have to live in it.  Kill the child: the system is messed up, and it’s tangentially hurting the mother’s body anyhow.  Kill P’Nut: it must be horrible that he’s been cared for and lived inside, and besides, his little mouth bit the Officer.  

Is the killing of P’Nut as tragic as everyone is making it out to be?  I mean, it’s a squirrel.  A pet, absolutely - and you would have to be as callous as a thorn bush to deny the bond pets have with their owners.  I personally died a little inside when we had to put down our milk cow, Dolly (though my family doesn’t know this).  So, it is more of a tragedy that a State Agency inserted itself into the private lives of citizens and destroyed an emotional attachment and bond with a living creature than it is that this particular squirrel was killed.  I for one am not dying inside because a squirrel who had a hat similar to mine got killed today.  But the similarity in thought process between killing P’Nut and otherwise kind souls who advocate for killing the unborn was too similar to not comment on.  It makes me wonder, just a little bit, when someone will decide that I am suffering too much and it would be better that I was killed than continue to be unknowingly miserable.  I can only hope that those sent to kill me tell me how not happy I actually am, how miserable my life really is before the deed; at least I will not die in ignorance.