I'm not going to blame Comcast for this one (even though I would love to). But these "men" should be ashamed of themselves. There is no excuse for torturing an animal, especially when you have enough cowardice to do it to a kitten.

As much as I hate them, Comcast has fuck-all to do with this. Hell, technically I'm a contractor for Comcast. I never see them, rarely speak to them. All they care is if I get the permits to the city for them on time.

Kind of negates the happy Comcast story right below, doesn't it?

What happened to the fourth man?

The mark of a true man, being able to torture a kitten. Karma is a bitch and I hope it comes back around to them.

Fucking despicable!

Funny that a guy named Jesus would do that.

This really has nothing to do with comcast though.

when you are a contractor to a company you represent them. All of your actions both good and bad reflect on the company you are a contractor to. Damn right it's Comcasts fault for not having or enforcing a proper code of conduct for their hires.

@Jaysyn: Heh. They will now since their name was smeared all over a crime report, associated with a couple of goons.

I agree, Comcast doesn't get the blame for this one. However, I hope the contractor perps are sentenced to be raped up the ass with a chainsaw several times for doing something so patently evil.

@muffinpan: you really think a line in the employee contract that said "don't paint and torture kittens" would have helped? This is bad employees/contractor.

Unreal. And I'll disagree that Comcast has nothing to do with this - they are contracted employees. I contract out work all the time for my employer and I won't hire a contractor without multiple character and work references. And then I still interview them just to make sure they are up to our standards. This is Comcast finding the cheapest labor they could - and here's the result. Uncaring asswipes that deserve to have their backsides spray painted in public and then kicked in the face by each member of the LA Galaxy.

Working for an MSO, I always said contractors were more harm then good.

Its a race to the bottom, with each contractor trying to under bid the other. Quickly the MSO ends up paying so little for a job, the only people that can get hired to do it at those price are these retards.

Comcast has everything to do with it. This is the inevitable outcome of their decision to outsource to the lowest bidder.

I'm a bit tired of people excusing company's for their contractor's behavior. Companies like Comcast use contractors to distance themselves from their employees. They don't need to pay them the same benefits or carry the same insurance coverage as they would for normal employees. There is no more excuse for hiring mentally deranged contractors than there is for hiring other mentally deranged employees.

maybe i'm just mean but i think part of their punishment should involve them getting the exact same treatment they dished out to a poor kitten

If Comcast wants a better reputation, they should hire better contractors, or better yet don't contract out their work.

I'm not saying that I think that Comcast themselves tortured a kitten. But I think they share the blame in that they put these derelicts on people's streets.

I wish penalties for animal cruelty were more severe.

Don't blame Comcast, the people responsible and to blame are Jesus Villalovos' parents!! Degenerates that can abuse animals like this should be sent to the Philippines to be caned.

@chemmy: Yep. I'm an animal guy. I don't care if it's a horse, dog, cat, snake or an elephant... the hottest places in hell are reserved for the inhumane...

@A.W.E.S.O.M.-O: I second that!

What kind of pussy tortures a kitten? Send them to Guantanamo.

What kind of pussy tortures a kitten? Send these guys to Guantanamo.
/second try (shakes fist at work server)

This isn't much of a Consumerist post. I love this website, but sometimes I wonder why some of these subjects come up. Just because it's got the word "Comcast" written on it doesn't mean it belongs here.

I like how we're villifying comcast because some jerks in their employ kicked about a kitten. All companies should perform mandatory psychological profiles on potential employees and customers to ensure this never happens again.

Lest we forget.

This isn't even a 'bad consumer' post. this is a 'bad consumerist' post, if there ever was one.

Ben is absolutely correct. Although we all know Comcast would never endorse kitten-torture, the mere fact that they don't care what kind of contractors they hire as long as they'll work CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP results in unpredictable and despicable people being hired.

Based on their history, I would encourage all single women with kittens to have another person present at all times when calling Comcast out to do ANYTHING.

As much as this has to do with comcast. I highly doubt this would sway anyones decision when getting cable. You see, everybody outsources to the lowest bidder so that way there can be no lesser of evils. It's the newest form of monopoly.@Ben Popken:

@ Tracy Ham And Eggs: Your a meatball. Is the concept of a company demanding proper conduct from a contractor too difficult for you to understand? From your post I guess so. Try to bring your posts to at least a non mentally handicapped level.

@Ben Popken: You can't be serious. This kind of thing is possible no matter which 'bidder' Comcast would have selected. You think crime and abuse is isolated to the lowest rungs of society? Also, what makes you think that it chose the 'lowest bidder', the picture of a Mexican with a bitter demeanor? I went to an expensive private school, and I had friends from public school. The kids I went to school with were assholes and brutal to animals, and many of my friends in the public system are people that I deeply admire.

Please don't make unbased assumptions, it seriously dectracts from your reputation and that of your website's credibility.

wow, contractors that kick kittens.

isnt that just the epitome of evil.

Are you kidding me, blaming this on Comcast?? Its not like their CEO was out there kicking kittens, then I could understand. So what you people are saying is that the company people work for is responsible for any action taken by the employee. In this world of yours any crime ever committed is, at least in part, the employers fault for not properly screening the employee? Its not like this is the only crime ever committed, I don't see you blaming Safeway for employing Ted Bundy or how about UC Berkley for hiring the Unabomber or any other person who has had a job and committed a crime. Darn employers aren't screening enough, more personal contact, blah blah blah, its not going to make a difference for the company, you never know what someone's capable of even if you're married to them. Now, I hate Comcast too, but this is really a stretch how does this really help joe(or josephine) everyman?

I completely agree that this is despicable and these people should be severely punished, but come on.

What division of Comcast do you think Crackle works for. LOL, good try Crackle

Kind of makes me glad that when Adelphia kicked the bucket Time Warner and Comcast both bid on our area and Time Warner won.

I work for a utility company and it's a little different I know but our service guys are second to none. The company goes out of its way to make sure that people are kind, courteous and helpful and everyone is always reminded "If we don't take care of our customers, somebody else will."

Comcast needs to overhaul their private contractor and put more control over them or at least contract to a company that does.

@crackle: Higher paying employers can afford to better screen their employees, thus weeding out employees who think torturing animals or racing vans while on the clock is a good idea. This is just a symptom of a larger problem of Comcast hiring contractors who don't feel the need to do their jobs. Which is why we end up with customers waiting all day for a service tech who never shows.

@Jaysyn: "Comcast has fuck-all to do with this" seems to contradict with "Hell, technically I'm a contractor for Comcast. I never see them, rarely speak to them" and "All they care is if I get the permits to the city for them on time".

Quality people they are hiring at Comcast contract workers. Maybe some of those crazy PETA people will protest in front of Comcast headquarters in the Pits of Hell, or wherever their headquarters is.

The biggest problem with they way all these companies do business is their 'outsourcing'. The fact that any of these cable companies can hide behind the excuse that they do not employ, manage, or have any controll over the conduct of these so called contractors is bull-shit. And get real if you think any of these companies would take responsibility for the indirect actions.

@Ben Popken: That is the reason some on here are not blaming Comcast.

@A.W.E.S.O.M.-O: Agreed. To me, it's just about tantamount to child abuse. In both cases you are taking advantage of a helpless creature. Just awful, awful, awful.

When I'm emperor of the world, I'll be reinstituting Hammurabi's code for animal cruelty cases.

I do blame Comcast for this. This guy is a contractor. He has at least some level of access to people's homes. Either outside line work or (gasp) inside your house. Seriously, torturing animals is usually an indicator of far worse behavior that person could be capable.

Comcast is complicit because they are not employing any sort of standards in hiring contractors. I have seen it happen in the tech industry. When they start just looking for the cheapest labor or lowest bidder this is what is left. Those that are incapable or so deranged they can't pass muster to be employed elsewhere. Good employees/contractors leave because they have other options if the company is going to pay peanuts.

This guy deserves some animal cruelty with a baseball bat.

"Maybe some of those crazy PETA people will protest in front of Comcast headquarters in the Pits of Hell, or wherever their headquarters is."

I think their HQ is in the Pits of Hell neighborhood in Philadelphia. Right next to the River Styx, Purgatory Row, and the Cheesesteak District.

These guys probably would have done it if they were employed by Comcast or not, but I think I'm starting to understand why this is on the Consumerist - what does it say about their hiring process? Along the lines of "Who else can slip through the hiring process of giant corporation that many, many people have to deal with," sometimes not by choice depending on the location, pricing, or any other number of factors. I can't find mention of what they did, may be missing it, but what if guys like these ended up in people's homes?

They could have legitimately not had any warning signs for anyone to be able to catch reasonably, but what is the likelihood that they have some kind of history? Considering that they spray-painted and tortured a kitten, somehow it doesn't seem like an activity that grown men would randomly feel like doing after a perfect history and go "Hey, this is a great idea!" Possible, for all the nay-sayers, but highly improbable.

@muffinpan: Gotta love conspiracy theorists.

@B: The White House has pretty limitless resources for checking their employee's backgrounds, and that didn't prevent Scotty McClellan from smearing the entire right wing in a matter of minutes. My point is that a company isn't morally responsible for it's employee's actions. I don't mean it's not liable - and this guy should get at a minimum fired. But this guy was going to spray paint a kitten one day or another, if he worked for Comcast, for Jetblue, for Amazon, or for no one.

Comcast would only be responsible if it had enabled this individual to do what he did. And it didn't. Unless it was part of the cable install... which would be actually kind of funny. Just because someone shows poor moral turpitude doesn't make them unemployable. At some point, this person was getting a job, and that employer is now stuck with a moran that puts his face in the media.

@bohemian: Do you have any evidence of this? Show me where it states that there are no standards of employment. You must know, because you're in the 'tech industry'.

For the record, I actually hate Comcast, their views on DRM, their throttling of the Bittorrent protocol, their shilling of public net neutrality meetings, the word 'comcastic', their awkwardly shaped cable box remotes, their pricing, and their anti-consumer stance. But I cannot denounce them for this.

Reading some of the comments above, I would say that it makes some sense to point the finger at Comcast if these guys were actually on the clock while abusing the kitten. If they were just strolling around town kicking kittens and puppies at midnight, it'd be harder to do so--it becomes "they just so happened to work for Comcast" instead of "they were on a job site and stopped to spray paint a cat." Obviously it's no fault of the CEO directly, but IMO it does speak volumes about the kind of people that the company is willing to hire (even if they are contracters).

@crackle: I agree completely, there are plenty of crimes committed where you never hear of the employer and limitless background checks can't weed out all the weirdos in the world. This whole post strikes me as borderline libelous.

And for the people saying its because they're low paid making them more likely to commit a crime, you think that lawyers, college professors or anyone else has never committed a crime worse than this? Are they low paid? Do you blame THEIR employer? The Unabomber RESIGNED from UC Berkley, not was fired and he's practically the definition of a nut job.

i really, really appreciate consumerist and the impact it's made; but your content is going from logical to illogical and bitter.

comcast is not to blame for the disgusting treatment of the kitten - if anything, you could have questioned their process of hiring contract employees.

i hope you continue to publish good stuff from the logical, non-bitter thoughtful blogging standpoint that you should - this is just stupid namecalling.

Please stop conflating the actions of some idiot Comcast employees with Comcast. Every time you say something stupid like this, it dilutes your effectiveness when Comcast actually does something. Pick your battles a little more carefully.

Comcast has zero interest quality control over its installers. They don't care if the guys on the vans knock uneeded holes in walls, block traffic, run over lawns and now we can add animal abuse to the long list of everything that is wrong with Comcast as a company.