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Police looking for teens who burned and beat cat

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Baltimore Police released video of five teens poking, beating, and burning a cat that was dead or close to it on Thursday.

It happened in an alley near the 5100 block of Harford Street.

ABC2 talked to a woman who lives nearby who didn’t want to be identified, she said she saw them smiling and laughing while abusing the animal and called police.

"The cat had to be alive because they wouldn't be poking it and sticking lighters and everything to it if it wasn't alive," the woman said.

The surveillance video shows the teens throwing cinder blocks at the cat’s head, lighting it on fire with cigarette lighters, and tossing it around with sticks.

The people we talked to didn't want to be identified but say the teens have been causing trouble for months.

"Damaging people's property hanging outside of the 7/11 and stores like that I don't know where the parents are and I think their partly responsible for these cats being killed like this," One neighbor said.

It goes beyond kids being kids.

"I don't think it's kids being kids, I think it's the parents not looking at these groups of kids that's hanging together,” said a witness.  “To me it's like a babysitter that they're letting these kids go out in groups and they figure they're alright and they don't know what they're doing,"

The neighbor said she hasn’t seem the get aggressive towards other people, but this disregard for life is troubling.

"When they start killing animals next they start killing people."

She hopes this story gets to them, and their parents.

"I would tell them to try to have respect for other people and their property. Matter fact I'd ask them would you want your mother’s home to be treated like this I actually said that to them,"

Neighbors say incidents like this have happened during school hours, and she knows one of them isn't any older than 14.

 Anyone with information on the identity of the suspects is asked to call detectives at 443-681-0101 or Metro Crime Stoppers at 1-866-7Lockup.