A Texas high-school agriculture teacher instructed her students to staple shut a cat’s incision — as the animal lay awake and screaming in pain — during a horrifying caught-on-tape incident, authorities say.
Instructor Emily Marie Benner, 25, was charged with animal cruelty to non-livestock over the sickening procedure, which occurred at the school in the Westwood district in Palestine, about 112 miles southeast of Dallas, CBS 19 reported.
Benner was booked into the Anderson County Jail on Sunday and released the same day on a $7,500 bond.
Video of the twisted lesson was obtained by CBS 19, which did not share the footage because it was too graphic.
According to the outlet, the clip shows Benner instructing students in the classroom to grab the cat and lay it down on the table.
The cat can be seen resisting being put on its back — and eventually starts to scream as the students hold it down, the outlet reported.
Benner then guides the students to perform stapling on the cat’s incision, according to the outlet.
The video concludes with the class erupting into cheers. The cat has since been placed under the care of a local veterinarian, the outlet reported.
Benner received her Texas Educator Certificate on June 9, 2022, and is certified to teach agriculture, food and natural resources to students in sixth to 12th grade, according to records with the Texas Education Agency.
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Wade Stanford, the superintendent of the Westwood Independent School District, addressed the “deeply troubling incident” in a letter to parents and students.
Stanford referred to the incident as animal cruelty and said, “We want to make it absolutely clear that our district takes such matters extremely seriously.
“This behavior is not in line with the values and standards we uphold within our district, and we are committed to taking immediate and decisive action to address this issue.”
In his apology, Stanford assured the entire community that the district would implement measures to prevent any similar incidents from happening in the future.
It was not immediately clear if Benner will keep her job.
School rep Britni Calzada told the outlet that the district does not comment on personnel matters but that the investigation is ongoing.
