Claim: Halloween 2012 has been designated "National Kill a Pitbull Day."
Example:[Collected via e-mail, September 2012]
WARNING!
Don't plan on your 4 legged friends walking around with you on Halloween this year.
KEEP ALL DOGS LOCKED IN A HOUSE
October 31 (Halloween Night) is trying to become National "Kill A Pitt Bull Day"
Not only is pit bulls part of this "Holiday". Any breed is fair game. Especially any look alike breeds.
Terry Jordan
I’m here by announcing October 31 National kill a pitbull day. After you take the kids trick or treating keep your costume on round up some friends and kill as many pibulls as you can before midnight. Baseball bats, knives, bricks and poisons (a hotdog soaked in radiator fluid works well) are all suitable tools. Their owners like brag about their high threshold for pain. So don’t worry them suffering they can take it. So remember to spread the word!
Origins: This announcement entreating adults to return to the streets to murder pit bulls and other "look alike" dogs after tucking their exhausted little trick-or treaters to bed spread via social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter in mid-September 2012.
In short, it's a hoax; no one is organizing a "National Kill a Pitbull Day" for Halloween 2012 or any other date.
The "National Kill a Pitbull Day" messages were part of an anonymous
prank aimed at Slater, Missouri, councilman Terry Jordan, who earlier in 2012 was instrumental in developing a pet animal ordinance for that city. While early drafts of that legislation singled out pit bulls, the final version altered the original focus upon that breed into a non-breed specific vicious dog ordinance.
After the "National Kill a Pitbull Day" hoax hit the Internet, Councilman Jordan was besieged with outraged phone calls, many threatening him and his family. Said Mayor Stephen Allegri: "Our Terry has been inundated and the city has been inundated with threats and calls. Well, Terry didn't do this." Also hit by outraged phone calls prompted by the Internet post have been the Slater Police Department, Slater City Hall, and Terry Jordan's business.
Jordan was horrified by the hoax and has never suggested violence against pit bulls.
The hoax feeds upon the long-lived legend that cats are routinely sacrificed by Satanic cults on Halloween, which in turn prompts many cat owners to keep their feline friends locked up for that night and numerous animal rescue groups to eschew placing black cats with new owners during the month of October.
