Why is America so worked up about the death of Peanuts the squirrel and his racoon pal, Fred? They’re just animals, right? Their owner was in violation of New York law or something, right? They were just animals!

Years ago, as a police division commander, one of the sections I supervised was animal control. Not only did we rescue animals from abusive owners, we did our best to find unwanted animals forever homes.

Sadly, that wasn’t always possible, and we had to euthanize many. It affected us all. When we had to kill animals we’d grown to love, those were sad days indeed. So wearing was the day-to-day reality it was hard to hang on to capable, dedicated people. That made my job harder but it was a good thing, because those we lost were in danger of losing their humanity. One day they had too much and resigned. I understood. Somehow, I always found more kind people.

That job taught me one significant lesson about law enforcement: you mess with people’s families—which includes their animals—at your own risk. Americans know there’s a difference between animals and human beings, but they love their furry pals nonetheless, and when their all-too-brief lives end, when they have to give a final act of love by ending their suffering, they prove themselves worthy of the love those furry family members so freely, unselfishly gave, and they weep. They never forget them.

Because animals are at our mercy, decent people consider animal abusers the lowest of the low. I often saw abusers receive more serious sentences than people who beat people. They deserved it. Here’s a secret: we sometimes bent—even broke--the law if it meant an animal ended up in a good home. We did what was right, not political. We didn’t care about power; we did the job, for humans and animals.

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Seven years ago, Peanut’s mother was killed by a car and Mark Longo took him in. He tried to release him back to the wild, but Peanut soon limped back, beaten up and desperate for his daddy. Knowing Peanut couldn’t survive on his own, the Longos opened their hearts and home.

Peanut became a social media sensation with a half-million Instagram followers. Just as he brightened the Longo home, he made life happier for those who came to love Peanut, who made their days just a little brighter with his squirrelly antics.

A year ago, the Longos moved to New York—big mistake. They opened the P’Nuts Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary, and housed 300 rescue animals, including Fred the racoon. But on October 30, armed New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) agents showed up with a warrant for Peanuts and Fred. Keep in mind I’m working from media accounts, but they apparently got an anonymous tip, and for five hours, ransacked Longo’s property. They seized and killed Peanuts and Fred.

Here's the DEC director. That uniform looks—dare I say it?—Nazi-like.

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Apparently the Longo’s paperwork wasn’t in order. Apparently in New York, one needs permits to care for orphaned, abandoned animals. In New York, one needs permits for everything, and bureaucrats get exercised if your paperwork isn’t in order.

Maybe they were worried about public safety, about rabies, but in that case, all the law normally requires is they be quarantined and watched for awhile. Peanut and Fred didn’t have rabies, and there is no known reason for anyone to suspect they did. Some accounts suggest Peanut bit one of the DEC thugs. The same procedure should have applied, and what’s their excuse for killing Fred?

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This is the state that sent hundreds, perhaps thousands, of elderly to their deaths during Covid. It’s the state that doesn’t prosecute people who riot, loot, burn, assault, rape, harass an brutalize Jews, even commit murder. It’s the state that goes ridiculously easy on violent criminals of all kinds. It’s a sanctuary state that won’t help enforce immigration law. It’s a state that makes up laws to prosecute political enemies. In New York, the law is whatever they say it is. They didn’t have to kill Peanut and Fred. They just wanted to, probably as a warning to anyone who might defy the DEC and New York State, to those whose papers are not in order.

But hey, you gotta have public safety priorities! That’s why former Marine Daniel Penny is on trial for daring to protect women and children in a NYC subway, and why Peanut and Fred are dead. In those choices, heartless New York bureaucrats have made this world more dangerous and darker.

Requiscat in pacem, Peanut and Fred. You live on in the hearts of the kind and rational.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.