SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah, June 27, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — Police say a drunken 42-year-old man threatened to kill an employee and tortured a cat Wednesday outside a Salt Lake County apartment complex.
Siddharth Shrivastava was arrested and booked into jail following an altercation with an employee at an undisclosed Salt Lake County apartment complex, according to a probable cause statement filed in 3rd District Court.
“[Shrivastava] had made … threats to kill one of the apartment management employees because he was upset,” the arresting Unified Police Department officer states in the affidavit.
Shrivastava then threatened to do damage to the employee’s truck, arrest documents say.
When the employee went to check on the truck, Shrivastava “came up and had some kind of sack in with ‘rocks’ that he was swinging around while yelling at the [employee],” the affidavit says.
Several employees later heard “a very loud ‘scream’ [and] went outside and found [Shrivastava’s] house cat on the ground and [the man] walking away,” the police statement continues.
“[Employees] thought the cat was dead and ‘lifeless,'” the affidavit says. “They went to check on the cat. As one of the [employees] picked up the ‘lifeless’ body, the cat came to, scratched the employee, and ran off.”
A witness told police they saw Shrivastava “throw the cat to the ground,” arrest documents say.
The arresting officer reported smelling “the strong odor of alcohol coming from [Shrivastava’s] breath,” according to the affidavit.
“[Shrivastava] said he had a bottle of rice wine and was ‘working’ on his whiskey,” the officer’s statement says.
Shrivastava was arrested for investigation of:
- Torture of a companion animal, a third-degree felony
- Threat of violence, a class B misdemeanor
- Intoxication, a class C misdemeanor
