(12/17/98)
GLENDORA, Calif. (AP) -- A 26-year-old man was arrested after allegedly choking his mother because she didn't buy food for his two pet piranhas.
Nathan Ricketts was being held Wednesday on suspicion of battery and possession of drug paraphernalia, Officer John Bur said. Bail was set at $100,000.
``He choked her almost into unconsciousness,'' Bur said.
Neighbors reported in the two days prior to the arrest, Ricketts was canvassing the area for severed limbs to serve as food for his pets.
Officers also confiscated two 7-inch-long piranhas that Ricketts had brought into the house earlier this week and placed in a 30-gallon aquarium. He refused to tell officers where he got the bloodthirsty South American fish, which are illegal to own, Bur said.
Wildlife officials ordered the fish destroyed, Bur said.
The piranha, disarmingly cute fish-eyes staring innocently in front of them, never knew that the hand that had imprisoned them in their cruel 30-gallon cage would also being responsible for the destruction of their poor, miserable existence, knowing only that peace from a life of jail, torture, and horror at the hands of humanity was at last coming to them, God rest their souls.
Who would have thought that even in a society such as ours, harmless piranha who had never hurt another soul would be cruelly murdered; executed mere days before a holiday purportedly about love, caring, and goodwill? Not this reporter. Not this reporter.
(Donations for the family of the bereaved may be sent care of the San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Contact the SPCA at http://www.sfspca.org, phone at (415) 554-3000, fax (415) 552-7041, or email publicinfo@sfspca.org)