Dead cat dumped in parking lot of Chinese American butcher
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) – The owner of a Sacramento butcher shop is looking for help identifying a man who left a dead cat in their parking lot Monday night.
Mad Butcher Meat Company has been in business for more than 30 years in Sacramento, with the last five in its current location.
“We’re trying to make a living. That’s all we’re trying to do here. We’re just trying to sell meat. That’s it,” owner Kelly Shum told KTXL on Tuesday.
Shum now runs the business her parents founded, and she said the past year has been difficult because of an increase in anti-Asian sentiment directed at the business.
“Yeah, and it’s always something about like, ‘You guys are dirty or you’re diseased.’ And we get calls all the time like, ‘Oh, do you guys sell bat soup?’” Shum said. “I feel like I have to work, like 40 times as hard to be seen as on the same level as the other butcher shops in the area. So, we increased our social media presence, we hired a security guard who you see out front now. Like, that’s why. Most butcher shops, when you go in, you don’t see a security guard at the very front.”
On Monday night, even with the security guard on duty, somebody left a box in the parking lot of the business with a dead, mutilated cat inside, Shum said.
Viewing the shop’s surveillance video, Shum identified the man who allegedly left the box. She said he first made a cash purchase inside the store.
“That’s him right there,” Shum said identifying a gray-haired man standing at the counter in the video.
From an exterior camera, video shows the man pull a box out of the bed of a pick-up truck and dump it in the parking lot.
“The box was open. Everyone could see it,” Shum recalled.
She said in the past, she’s been reluctant to go public about incidents of discrimination.
“You know, you just try to keep your head down. You try to keep working through it. And it’s a year later. It’s literally a year later, and someone’s dropping off dead cats in my parking lot,” she said.
She posted the video of the incident on social media along with a description of what happened.
“Find him please. Please help me find this guy because I can’t take it anymore,” she said.
“I don’t think I can keep doing what I’ve been doing for the last year, which is keep my head down and try not to be public that we’re Chinese,” Shum explained. “And I don’t want to feel not proud of my culture, and I don’t want to not feel proud of the work that we do here because I am proud of the work that we do here. I’m proud of everyone that works here, and I’m proud of the staff that we have, and I’m proud of everything that we have here.”
Shum said she filled out an online report Tuesday with Sacramento police and attached links to the surveillance video. Sacramento police did not have any additional information to release on the case.