BUCYRUS—The nationally based animal rights organization PETA (People for The Ethical Treatment for Animals) has offered their support to area students K-12 affected by the alleged mutilation of a lost dog in Bucyrus. The organization issued this release:

Following reports that the Crawford County Sheriff’s Department is investigating allegations that a 17-year-old hit a dog with his car on his way to school and later allegedly shared a video on social media recorded by a friend of himself placing the dog’s severed head on a guardrail on Stetzer Road. TeachKind—PETA’s humane education division—sent a letter to Superintendent Greg Nickoli today offering to provide Pioneer Career & Technology Center and surrounding schools with a K–12 kindness-to-animals curriculum and “Empathy Now,” a guide to preventing youth violence against animals. The group is also offering to host free, virtual empathy-building virtual presentations to help prevent future violence.

TeachKind notes that research shows that 43% of perpetrators of schoolyard massacres first committed acts of cruelty against animals, usually against dogs and cats—so juvenile animal abusers pose a serious threat to the community at large. TeachKind’s other resources include its free high school social justice curriculum, “Challenging Assumptions,” and its “Share the World” program kit, which is appropriate for young children. Its staff members—who are former classroom teachers—are also offering to send materials to schools, suggest lesson plans, and host virtual discussions, all for free.

TeachKind—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. The group’s letters to the superintendents are available upon request. For more information, please visit TeachKind.org.

Based on the information provided on their website PETA has a varied mission:

“PETA is an American animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. The nonprofit corporation claims that PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters globally. Its slogan is “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.”

Crawford County Now will continue to cover this developing story.