Petition: A Six-Week-Old Kitten Was Tortured to Death in an ATM Booth. The Accused Just Skipped Court.

At around 2 a.m. on July 1, 2026, a man carried a six-week-old black kitten into a Bank of America ATM vestibule at 1844 Market Street in San Francisco. Inside that small, enclosed space, police say he violently tortured the animal to death, then walked out carrying its body. A witness came forward the next day, and the kitten’s remains were recovered nearby. San Francisco Animal Care and Control led the investigation and identified the suspect as 33-year-old William Ohlson of Reno, Nevada, tracking him to a hotel on Fell Street. When officers arrived with a search warrant on July 14, he climbed out of a window onto an adjoining roof; a police drone located him, the fire department brought a ladder truck, and he was arrested. District Attorney Brooke Jenkins charged him with killing, maiming or abusing an animal, overworking an animal, and resisting arrest. Then, on July 20, he simply did not turn up to his own arraignment. A bench warrant has been issued, and the man accused in this case is not in custody. Please sign the petition demanding a lifetime ban on animal ownership and mandatory mental health counseling.

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The DA’s office had flagged the risk before it happened, noting he listed a Nevada address and had no permanent residence in San Francisco. That is exactly why the outcome this petition asks for matters: a case that ends in a missed hearing and a fine changes nothing about who is allowed to be alone with an animal next month. A permanent ban on owning animals, paired with mandatory mental health evaluation and counseling, is the part that actually protects the next kitten — and deliberate, close-quarters cruelty of this kind is exactly the behavior researchers have long linked to violence against people, which One Green Planet examines in Should Animal Abuse Be Considered a Violent Crime? The reporting on the charges and the bench warrant is available via SFist. Sign the petition and tell prosecutors this case cannot be allowed to quietly disappear.

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