Who tied the kitty to the rail road tracks?

San Antonio Express-News/Houston Chronicle:

The calico kitten was riddled with fleas and so scrawny you could see its backbone.

Yet the animal was in far better shape Thursday morning than it had been several hours earlier, when two off-duty security guards on a secluded South Side road saw a man and a woman tying the creature to some railroad tracks with a shoelace, a police report said.

The couple got away, but the kitten, christened Tracks, got a temporary home with one of its rescuers.

"We're trying to make it fat," said John Hernandez, 22, feeding the skeletal weeks-old feline a second can of beef and gravy.

Police are investigating the case as one of deadly conduct because Hernandez and the other guard, Jacob Salinas, said the man pointed a gun at them.

The city also could assign an animal cruelty officer to the case.

The strange case comes on the heels of tougher animal-cruelty laws passed this year by Texas lawmakers.

House Bill 2328 would allow pet owners to be punished for seriously injuring their animals and extends protection to stray dogs and cats, defining cruelty as something that "causes or permits unjustified or unwarranted pain or suffering."

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This is more than passing strange. There are alternatives to tying a kitty to a rail road track if you don't want it anymore, especially staying up till three in the morning to do it. San Antonio must have animal control officials who could have taken off their hands during normal hours fo operation.