A Vancouver man charged with animal cruelty after the videotaping of the torture of a kitten is facing several unrelated criminal charges.
Jordan Lucas, 28 was arrested Thursday in Richmond on a warrant for robbery and weapons offences and is being held in jail until his next court appearance on Aug. 30.
He has been charged with robbery, obstructing a police officer and a charge related to carrying false identification, Anne Drennan, a spokes-woman for the Transit police, said on Saturday.
She said two officers on routine patrol in the parking lot of the Richmond-Brighouse Canada Line station in Richmond spotted a man and woman crouched behind a dumpster. When asked for ID, the man provided a false name which turned out to be an alias for Lucas, said Drennan. Lucas was wanted by Vancouver police for a robbery involving bear spray in November 2010.
The woman was not arrested. Drennan said police chased Lucas into the transit Station and up to the platform where he was arrested. Police allege that, shortly before his capture, Lucas dropped several stolen ID cards and a bank card.
On Friday, the SPCA announced Lucas faces one count of animal cruelty.
In April, a woman bought a used cellphone and found on it a video of a black-and-white kitten being "violently abused and tortured," said Marcie Moriarty, general manager of cruelty investigations for the B.C. Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Moriarty said the abuse included throwing the kitten against furniture, punching, slapping and choking the animal, and swinging it around with a cord around its neck.
SPCA spokeswoman Lorie Chortyk said it's not known whether the kitten survived.
"It was just sick, but the kitten was alive at the end of it," she said. "We're trying to find out if the kitten is miraculously alive or what he did with it."
No person, other than a man's hands, were visible in the video. But Moriarty said the left hand had a distinctive tattoo, which police allege matches one on Lucas.
Lucas, who appeared in Vancouver for a bail hearing Friday, was also wanted for breach of probation on unrelated charges.
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