Fort Lauderdale police have offered a $5,000 reward for information that can help them locate a child who was seen stomping and killing a duck in a video.
Per CBS News, authorities are investigating the Sunday incident as a case of animal cruelty. In the aftermath of the incident, neighbors said that though ducks frequent the area, that has not been the case after the incident, as the neighborhood has now become quieter.
In the video of the incident, two children are seen chasing the duck in the 300 block of Southwest 8th Avenue before one of them continues the pursuit and catches the bird. The child is then seen repeatedly stomping the duck before it dies.
“I think the kid maybe has been abused or something. Because of that, they need to look into who the parents are,” Jett, who stays in the neighborhood, said.
“I think that’s the most important thing because, I don’t know, I think maybe he has seen something that has caused a lot of trauma for him to be capable of doing something like that, that’s, I have no words. I don’t even know what to say. That’s terrible.”
Fort Lauderdale patrol cars ultimately combed the area in the aftermath of the incident. “He wasn’t brought up right, or he wasn’t thinking properly,” a neighbor identified as Ross Schmidt also said.
Schmidt said that ducks frequently patrol the area, adding that he can’t fathom why or how a bird would be killed by an individual.
“That’s cruelty to animals and ducks are protected in Florida. And ducks are harmless,” Schmidt said.
