Football star ‘horrifically tortured frightened kitten for stealing food’
A football star has been suspended from his team after being accused of inflicting painful abuse on a terrified kitten for stealing food. Aaron Beasley, a linebacker with the University of Tennessee’s football team, was dropped from the squad over claims he deliberately wounded the kitten, called Nugget, last Friday.
Beasley is accused of kicking the kitten and holding it by its tail over a toilet, then dropping it into the toilet bowl. His alleged attack left Nugget suffering from brain damage that will affect the kitten’s ability to walk. Nugget also suffered a bleeding kidney, and had to be placed in an oxygen tank for treatment.
The animal’s owner Kaylee Scarbrough – who lived with Beasley’s girlfriend – said the football star attacked the kitten after it ate food in his girlfriend’s Zoe Phillips’ room.
Beasley is said to have locked himself in the bathroom with the kitten before abusing it, with Phillips allegedly heard sobbing ‘You can’t do that,’ as he tortured Nugget, Knox News reported.
Beasley is being probed by Knoxville Police, but has not yet been charged with any crime. The University of Tennessee’s Athletics department released a statement saying he ‘has been suspended indefinitely from all football team activities as we await further information.’
Scarbrough set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for Nugget’s treatment. She wrote: ‘I have been in the process of moving and I came home this morning to find my 6 month old kitten under a dresser hiding and not letting anyone touch him.
‘When I picked him up he screamed and couldn’t walk, come to find out my roomates boyfriend had hit and kicked him, locked him in the toilet bowl, and held him upside down by his tail.’
‘My heart is absolutely broken for him and I just want my baby to be okay and to stop animal cruelty.
‘I think it’s ridiculous I am having to make this but this is what it has come to.’
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