I have been dealing with this case for quite some time now. I have read newspaper reports, compared press releases, looked up laws, placed statements side by side, formulated questions for authorities and probably watched those 55 seconds more often than I would have liked.
And yet something strange keeps happening. The more I learn about the Schmotzer case, the longer the list of things I still do not know becomes.
Research should really work the other way around. You start with many questions, find answers, cross items off your list one by one, and eventually a picture emerges that is at least reasonably complete.
With Schmotzer, that simply does not happen. Some things are clear by now.
Four young men stood trial before the Innsbruck Regional Court on 4 August 2026. All four were acquitted. The public prosecutor waived the right to appeal. The acquittals are final.
There is the video. There is the captive-bolt shot. There are Schmotzer’s movements afterwards. There are the blows with the shovel. There is the call for another blow. There is the cutting of his throat.
And there is the explanation given by those involved: that they had found an already seriously injured cat and wanted to put an end to his suffering.
Up to this point, one might think the story has essentially been told.
But for me, this is exactly where the questions begin.
What do we know – and what have we been told?
The statement that Schmotzer was seriously injured is one piece of information. What injuries he actually had is another.
The veterinary expert reportedly could not establish with the level of certainty required in criminal proceedings whether Schmotzer was still conscious and experiencing pain after the captive-bolt shot.
But that does not automatically mean that he was unconscious and no longer capable of feeling pain.
That may sound like arguing over words. It is not.
There is an enormous difference between saying, “We cannot prove that he was in pain” and saying, “He was not in pain.”
These are exactly the kinds of distinctions that interest me more and more in this case.
The more often a certain formulation is repeated, the easier it is for something to happen that occurs surprisingly quickly in complicated stories: a statement gradually turns into an apparent fact. A possibility becomes certainty. And eventually hardly anyone remembers what that certainty was originally based on.
I want to avoid that. In both directions.
Just because I have not yet found a publicly accessible report describing Schmotzer’s alleged serious pre-existing injuries in detail does not allow me to conclude that those injuries did not exist.
That would be just as careless.
The correct answer at this point is simply: I do not know.
And perhaps that is one of the most important sentences in this entire investigation.
Clearing the table
The previous article deliberately took a different approach.
There, I developed a fictional investigation and asked myself how I would approach this case on the basis of the publicly available information. What questions would I ask? What evidence would I examine? What criminal allegations might arise?
That was a thought experiment.
This article is not.
There is no fictional prosecutor here, no invented indictment and no alternative court hearing.
This time I want to try something much simpler: clear the table.
What do we really know? What did those involved say? What did the expert establish? What conclusions did the court draw? Which information comes from media reports? What can actually be reconstructed? And which questions are still lying on the table even though the criminal proceedings have long since ended?
I am not trying to retry the case after the fact. The four defendants were acquitted. Those acquittals are final. That is the legal reality.
But the conclusion of criminal proceedings does not automatically mean that every question raised by a case has been answered. And in the Schmotzer case, some of those questions are remarkably basic.
One of them has come to occupy me more than almost any other. We know a great deal about the final 55 seconds of his life. But what actually happened afterwards?
Where did Schmotzer go? What happened to his remains? Was his body examined? If so, by whom? Which injuries were documented? And above all, which of them could actually be attributed to the period beforethe captive-bolt shot?
There may be perfectly understandable answers to all of these questions. They may be contained in the investigation files. They may have been discussed during the non-public trial. I simply do not know those answers.
And because I do not know them, I will not invent them.
The questions remain, however.
The longer I deal with this case, the more I feel that the loudest questions are not necessarily the most important ones.
Sometimes they are the simplest.
Where had Schmotzer been before? How badly was he actually injured? Why was no veterinarian called? What happened to his body after his death?
Perhaps a truly thorough examination of this case begins right there: not with yet another answer, but with the willingness to leave a question unanswered when the evidence does not allow us to answer it.
The serious injuries – but how do we know?
One sentence appears again and again in connection with the Schmotzer case: the cat was allegedly already seriously injured when the four young men found him.
This assumption is important, perhaps even decisive. It forms the basis of their explanation that they did not kill Schmotzer in order to harm him, but in order to end his suffering.
The longer I think about it, however, the less interested I am in the explanation itself and the more interested I become in something much simpler: How do we actually know how badly Schmotzer was injured?
According to the published reports, substantial pre-existing injuries were assumed during the proceedings. At the same time, the video that later became the focus of public attention shows only the final seconds of his life. It does not show what happened beforehand.
The video alone therefore cannot tell us which injuries Schmotzer already had before the recording began.
There may, of course, have been other evidence. Statements by those involved. Witness statements. Perhaps photographs. Perhaps information contained in the investigation file that was never made public.
The fact that the trial itself was not open to the public makes it even harder for outsiders to reconstruct this point afterwards.
For exactly that reason, I do not want to speculate.
I cannot say that Schmotzer was not seriously injured because I have no basis for doing so. But neither can I treat a frequently repeated formulation as proof that I know exactly what injuries he had and how they were established.
And once again I come back to the same simple, slightly irritating question that has followed me throughout this case:
What is the evidence?
Not: Who said it?
But: What is it based on?
The body hardly anyone talks about
This brings me back to a question that has become almost more important to me than some of the legal details.
What happened to Schmotzer’s body after his death?
At first glance, that may seem like a minor point. To me, it no longer is.
If the question is whether an animal was already seriously injured before it was killed, then its body is one of the most obvious pieces of evidence imaginable.
Was Schmotzer examined after his death? Was there a veterinary or pathological examination? Were injuries documented? Was it possible to determine which injuries had existed beforehand and which occurred during the actions shown in the video? Are there photographs or written findings?
So far, I have not found a publicly accessible source that answers these questions for me.
Again, that does not justify a false conclusion. The fact that I have not found such a report does not mean that none exists. It may be part of the investigation file. It may have been discussed during the non-public hearing. There may be a perfectly simple explanation that has simply never been made public.
But I find it remarkable how much we now discuss individual seconds of a video while I know virtually nothing about what happened to the most important physical piece of evidence.
We know who is said to have fired the captive bolt. We know who is said to have used the shovel. We know that the event was filmed and that another blow was urged. We discuss reflexes, consciousness, pain and the effects of a captive-bolt device.
Yet I still do not know what happened to Schmotzer afterwards.
That is not an accusation. It is simply an unanswered question.
And I would like to know the answer.
The claimed intention to end suffering
Then there is the explanation given by the four people involved. They said they had found Schmotzer injured and wanted to put an end to his suffering.
Here, too, we have to remain careful.
That explanation cannot simply be rejected because many people find the video disturbing. A defendant does not lose the right to have an explanation favourable to him seriously examined.
But an explanation does not become a fact simply because it is repeated.
For me, the real questions therefore begin only after the words, “We wanted to end his suffering.”
If four young men genuinely believed that a severely injured cat was lying in front of them, what happened next? Who determined that Schmotzer could no longer be saved? What injuries were visible? Was calling a veterinarian discussed? Did anyone try to make such a call? Was veterinary help available? And if that option was rejected, why?
I do not consider those questions unfair.
On the contrary. If the intention really was to end suffering, answers to them might even support that explanation.
Perhaps circumstances existed that have simply never become public. Perhaps the situation was far more difficult than it appears from the limited information available to us today.
But until I know those circumstances, I cannot simply add them to the story.
The sentence “We wanted to end his suffering” explains a claimed motivation.
It does not explain the entire path from finding an injured animal to deciding to use a captive-bolt device, a shovel and finally a knife.
That path is what interests me.
What the video proves – and what it does not
The video is both the strongest and the most problematic piece of evidence in this case.
It is strong because certain actions no longer depend on memory. What the camera recorded exists. The sequence can be examined, the audio can be heard and individual movements can be analysed.
The problems begin when we try to turn visible movements into medical certainty.
Schmotzer’s body moves clearly after the captive-bolt shot. Those movements are real. They are visible on the recording.
But what they mean medically is a different question.
According to the published information, the veterinary expert could not determine with certainty whether Schmotzer remained conscious and experienced pain after the shot. At the same time, the captive-bolt shot appears to have been assessed as improperly or probably incorrectly carried out.
For me, those two statements belong together.
If the captive bolt was not correctly applied, the question of its actual effect inevitably arises. The visible movements alone cannot answer that question.
A further source has now entered the discussion. The Facebook page “Schmotzers Gesetz” states that it has access to the uncensored original video and has analysed it frame by frame.
According to the page’s operators, the recording was broken down into more than 1,500 individual images, revealing movement patterns that are difficult to perceive during normal viewing.
I expressly do not treat this analysis as a veterinary expert report. Its authors do not claim that it is one either.
Nevertheless, I find it interesting.
It raises specific questions about individual movement sequences and whether some of the later movements can be fully explained as involuntary reactions alone.
That is not proof that Schmotzer was conscious.
But it is a reason to look more closely.
And perhaps that has become the thread running through my entire examination of this case: not turning every observation immediately into an answer.
Sometimes it is enough to say that something deserves another, closer look.
An acquittal does not answer every question
On 4 August 2026, the criminal proceedings before the Innsbruck Regional Court ended with four acquittals. The public prosecutor waived the right to appeal, making those decisions final.
Legally, that point is clear. The four men were not convicted in these criminal proceedings, and I have no intention of pretending otherwise.
Nevertheless, an acquittal does not automatically answer every factual question that arose during the proceedings.
That distinction can easily disappear in public debate.
A criminal court does not have to reconstruct the entire history of an event down to its final detail. Its task is to decide whether the criminal offences alleged against the defendants can be proven with the degree of certainty required by law. If decisive doubts remain, they cannot be resolved against the defendants.
That is how a state governed by the rule of law must work.
For someone looking at the case afterwards from a journalistic perspective, questions may nevertheless remain. Not because the judgment should be ignored, but because some of those questions may never have required a definitive answer for the criminal decision.
I still want to know which injuries Schmotzer had before his death. I want to know how their severity was determined. I want to know what happened to his body. And I want to know what possibilities existed for obtaining veterinary help.
None of these questions turns an acquitted person into a guilty one after the fact.
But neither does an acquittal turn an unanswered question into an answered one.
What do we actually know about the trial?
Another problem has accompanied this research from the beginning: the main hearing was not open to the public.
That means something important is missing.
We know reports about the proceedings. We know the court’s media statement. Journalists subsequently reported statements by the court, parts of the expert assessment and key considerations behind the acquittals.
From that, some elements can be reconstructed.
But we were not in the courtroom.
We therefore do not know in full which questions were asked, how extensively individual issues were discussed, what answers the defendants gave or precisely how the expert explained his assessment.
We do not know every question asked by the judge, every argument made by the defence or every detail contained in the investigation file.
That matters because otherwise it is easy to make a mistake that I want to avoid throughout this series: seeing a gap in public reporting and treating it as though it must also have been a gap in the proceedings themselves.
We cannot do that.
Perhaps the question of Schmotzer’s body was discussed in detail. Perhaps documents exist concerning his injuries. Perhaps the reason why no veterinarian was called was explained. Maybe the answers exist but were simply never made public.
I do not know.
It is equally possible that some questions genuinely remained unanswered.
I do not know that either.
This uncertainty is unsatisfying, but it is more honest than filling in the missing parts afterwards with assumptions.
Four men are not one person
Another point has become increasingly important to me.
People very quickly speak of “the four men” as though they had been one single acting person during those 55 seconds.
They were not.
According to the publicly available information, different actions can be attributed to different participants. One filmed. One used the captive-bolt device and later cut the animal’s throat. One struck with the shovel. The audio contains the call for another blow.
For a fourth participant, the specific individual act is far more difficult to reconstruct from publicly accessible information.
That difference has to remain visible.
It would be easy to turn four people who were present into one collective action. Criminal law does not work that way. Each individual must be assessed according to what can actually be attributed to him and according to what he intended.
I try to maintain that distinction morally as well.
Of course the video causes emotions. It does in me too. Pretending otherwise would be dishonest.
But emotions must not turn a group into four identical stories.
A person who struck the animal must answer for those blows if they were criminally relevant and can be proven. A person who urged another blow raises different questions. A person who performed the killing acts raises others again. And someone who was merely present cannot automatically be equated with everything others did.
That should be obvious.
In an overheated debate, surprisingly often it is not, and it increasingly shows just how difficult normal communication has become.
Perhaps the hardest word: intention
The longer I think about this case, the more I believe that almost everything eventually leads to a question no camera can answer directly.
What did those involved intend?
The publicly known explanation is that they wanted to end Schmotzer’s suffering. That statement matters greatly in criminal law.
At the same time, the video contains things that make many people doubt that explanation: the filming, the laughter, the manner of the killing and the call for another blow.
But here, too, I have to set myself a limit.
Laughter does not prove a particular intention. Filming does not prove a particular intention. Even an act that appears cruel from the outside does not automatically tell us what was going on in the mind of the person carrying it out.
I would be more inclined to place such behaviour in the realm of character.
Intent has to be inferred from circumstances. That is exactly why it is so difficult to prove in criminal proceedings.
I am still interested, however, in whether the individual parts of this story really fit together.
If I believe that I have to end an animal’s suffering, how do I behave? What help do I seek? How do I decide that there is no other option? How do I treat the animal? And how do I behave while killing it?
There is not automatically only one correct answer to those questions.
People react differently in exceptional situations. Some act calmly, others frantically. Some make mistakes. Some disguise uncertainty through strange behaviour.
But if a claimed motivation becomes so important to the legal assessment, it is legitimate to ask whether the rest of the behaviour is consistent with that motivation.
Not in order to invent another intention.
But to examine the one that has been claimed.
Between doubt and certainty
Perhaps this is where the real problem in this case lies.
On the one hand, there are images that appear extraordinarily clear. We see actions, hear voices and observe Schmotzer’s body.
On the other hand, there are questions that those images cannot answer with certainty: consciousness, perception of pain, pre-existing injuries, motivation and what the individuals involved were thinking during the various acts.
One must not displace the other.
I do not want to turn medical uncertainty into certainty that Schmotzer experienced pain. But neither do I want to turn the inability to prove pain into certainty that he felt nothing.
I do not want to claim that the explanation of ending his suffering was false. But I do want to know what it was actually based on and how it fits with the rest of what happened.
And I do not want to claim that the court failed to examine particular questions simply because I cannot find the answers in publicly available documents.
That is the space in which this article moves.
Perhaps that makes it less spectacular.
To me, it makes it more interesting.
The longer I deal with Schmotzer, the less I am looking for a simple story with clearly assigned roles.
What I want to know now is something else:
Which parts of this story withstand truly thorough examination – and which parts do we regard as certain only because they have been repeated often enough?
Sometimes, while writing my articles, I find myself quietly despairing at this apparent inability of people to speak to one another normally anymore, and I wish I could find an antidote.
Because I also know that it can be very different.
Criminal law was not the only legal level
After the acquittals, many people felt that everything was over. Criminal proceedings concluded, four acquittals, the public prosecutor waived the right to appeal, decisions final.
Legally, that is true for those criminal proceedings.
But the more I worked my way through the documents, the clearer it became to me that this did not automatically resolve every legal question surrounding Schmotzer.
Alongside the Austrian Criminal Code, there is also the Animal Welfare Act. And some of the questions asked there are different.
That may initially sound like legal fine print, but it is actually fairly simple.
The criminal trial dealt, among other things, with whether the requirements for animal cruelty under Section 222 of the Austrian Criminal Code were fulfilled and whether this could be proven against the defendants with the necessary degree of certainty.
Animal welfare law also asks under what circumstances an animal may be killed at all and what duties arise when a sick or injured animal requires care.
The Austrian Chamber of Veterinarians highlighted precisely this distinction after the judgment. On 10 August, it expressly called for an independent animal-welfare-law review of the case.
The Chamber focused particularly on Section 6 of the Animal Welfare Act, concerning the killing of an animal without reasonable cause, and Section 15, concerning the care of sick or injured animals.
And suddenly we are back at one of my most persistent questions.
If Schmotzer really was found seriously injured, what should have happened at that moment?
Who decides that an animal can no longer be saved?
The Chamber of Veterinarians expressed quite clearly something that has concerned me throughout this research.
Whether an injured animal can be treated, what pain or suffering it is experiencing and what its prognosis is should, in the Chamber’s view, be professionally assessed. An assessment by laypeople cannot replace a veterinary examination.
This is exactly where I start wondering again.
I understand that people sometimes have to make decisions in acute situations. Sometimes there are seconds, sometimes minutes, sometimes no veterinary clinic around the corner, and perhaps a situation really does look dramatic.
That is why I have no interest whatsoever in sitting at a desk and pretending that every real-life emergency can be solved with a textbook in hand.
But in Schmotzer’s case, we know that the decision to kill him was not merely discussed. It was carried out.
With a captive-bolt device, followed by blows with a shovel and finally the cutting of his throat.
And I want to know what happened before that decision was made.
I cannot imagine doing anything other than calling for professional help when dealing with an injured animal. I would never presume to play judge and executioner.
How does someone even arrive at such a terrible idea?
Not because I already know the answer. But because the answer would make an enormous difference to me.
Was an attempt made to contact a veterinarian? Was anyone called who could professionally assess the injuries? Was there any assessment at all that Schmotzer could no longer be treated? Or did that conclusion arise solely within the group?
Perhaps answers exist in the investigation file. Perhaps they were given during the trial.
I have not found them fully explained in public sources.
And that is why this question, too, remains in the category marked: open.
A second review is not a second criminal trial
We have to be very precise here, because otherwise it can quickly sound as though people intend to keep going after an acquittal until some authority somewhere finally imposes a punishment.
That would be the wrong way to describe it.
After the judgment, the State of Tyrol told MeinBezirk that the Kitzbühel District Authority was examining whether administrative penal proceedings should be initiated or continued.
It was expressly pointed out that the same conduct cannot simply be punished simultaneously under criminal and administrative penal law. But after a criminal acquittal, the question can still arise whether independent administrative offences remain to be examined.
That is an important distinction.
This is not about circumventing the acquittal of the Innsbruck Regional Court. Nor is it about having another authority conduct the same criminal trial all over again.
It is about whether the Animal Welfare Act contains questions that were not finally resolved in the criminal proceedings or that have to be assessed differently because the legal requirements are different.
The Austrian Chamber of Veterinarians expressly points to the different legal concepts of a “wanton” killing under criminal law and a killing “without reasonable cause” under animal welfare law.
It therefore believes that the Schmotzer case still requires clarification.
I consider that distinction extremely important.
Because a statement such as “not provable under criminal law” does not automatically mean that every other legal obligation was fulfilled.
And once again, we end up with the veterinarian
Interestingly, this second legal level leads back to exactly the same practical question.
Why was no veterinarian called?
Perhaps there was a reason. Perhaps the situation was different from what we can reconstruct today from the limited published information. Perhaps there was a call, an attempt to reach someone or other circumstances that have simply never become public.
But as long as I know nothing about that, the question remains.
And this is where the issue becomes very human for me.
If I found a seriously injured animal somewhere, my first thought would not be: How can I kill it?
My first thought would be: Who can help this animal?
Perhaps that is simply a very personal reaction. I am not a veterinarian, and precisely because I am not, I would not trust myself to decide whether an animal could still be saved.
That is exactly why this point concerns me so much.
The statement “We wanted to end his suffering” carries a different weight if everything possible was first done to obtain professional help.
And it carries a different weight if no such help was sought at all.
Which of those situations applied to Schmotzer is something I want to know.
Not guess.
Perhaps this is where the real fundamental question lies
The Schmotzer case is now often treated as though it were solely about whether four young men should have been convicted under criminal law.
I increasingly believe that the case has become bigger than that.
Not bigger in the sense of a scandal.
Bigger in terms of the question behind it.
What is a person allowed to do when they find a seriously injured animal? When may someone decide for themselves that this animal has to die? What help must be sought first? What level of expertise is required? And who determines afterwards whether those requirements were actually met?
Those questions extend far beyond Schmotzer.
That is precisely why I consider the review by the Kitzbühel District Authority and the statement by the Chamber of Veterinarians important.
Not because the result should already be predetermined.
Quite the opposite.
Perhaps the review will conclude that no administrative offence can be proven. Perhaps it will reach a different conclusion.
Both outcomes have to remain possible, otherwise it would not be a serious review.
What I want is something far less spectacular.
A comprehensible answer.
I want the state, represented here by the justice system, to take my questions seriously, to tolerate and respect my objections and not behave as though we were still living in the Vormärz, with the institutions of the state effectively saying: “I tolerate very little dissent, and since you do not appear to understand that, other means may be required.”
The longer this case remains part of public debate, the more I notice that much of the anger may not come from the acquittals alone.
It also comes from the fact that many people still do not understand what rules are actually supposed to apply when an injured animal is found.
And that is a question to which a state governed by the rule of law should be able to provide a comprehensible answer.
What did not disappear after the judgment
The Schmotzer case could, in theory, have ended with the acquittals. The criminal proceedings were concluded, the decisions became final, and from the justice system’s point of view there was, at least initially, a clear endpoint.
In public, almost exactly the opposite happened.
The case grew.
People began discussing the reasoning behind the judgment, reading legislation, writing to authorities and searching for information that had received little public attention during the non-public proceedings.
Animal welfare organisations spoke out, the Chamber of Veterinarians called for a further animal-welfare-law review, and the Kitzbühel District Authority began examining possible administrative consequences.
At the same time, parts of the debate became increasingly aggressive.
There were insults, threats and demands that had nothing more to do with a factual discussion of the case.
I understand the anger caused by the images. I also understand why many people find the judgment almost impossible to comprehend.
Anyone who sees the video does not first respond with a comment on the Austrian Criminal Code.
You respond as a human being.
But that is also where a boundary begins.
Anyone demanding justice for an animal while threatening people at the same time ultimately damages the very cause they believe they are defending.
Criticism of a judgment may be harsh. Criticism of laws may be equally harsh. We may ask whether a case was sufficiently investigated, whether a law is still appropriate or whether certain decisions were explained convincingly.
What we may not do is build our own system of punishment out of anger.
Criticism does not need threats
I have read many comments during this research.
Some were thoughtful, some angry, some desperate.
Others crossed a line for me very clearly.
People were insulted. Fear was wished upon them. Some were told that they should never have another peaceful moment. The judge was also subjected to personal attacks.
I have no use for that.
Not because I believe courts or authorities should be spared criticism.
Quite the opposite.
Anyone exercising state authority must be able to withstand criticism. Court decisions may be analysed, questioned and criticised very clearly.
But a judge is not the judgment.
A defendant is not the sum of everything strangers write about him on the internet.
And the rule of law loses its meaning if we accept its rules only when the outcome matches our own expectations.
I can believe a judgment is wrong and still accept that it is legally final.
I can demand changes to the law without threatening another human being.
And I can ask questions whose answers may be uncomfortable for those involved without denying them their dignity.
Perhaps that sounds obvious.
Over the past few days, I have not always had the impression that it is.
Why the anger does not simply disappear
It would nevertheless be too easy to dismiss the public outrage merely as the problem of an overheated internet debate.
Because there is something else behind that anger.
Many people have seen those 55 seconds, or at least read about them. Afterwards, they learn that four defendants were acquitted.
At the same time, crucial aspects remain difficult for outsiders to understand because the hearing was not public and only parts of the evidence presented in court have become known.
A gap appears.
And gaps are quickly filled with assumptions.
Some are convinced that the justice system failed. Others consider the case fully resolved simply because there was a legally final acquittal. Still others keep searching for new information because they feel that a crucial piece of the story is missing.
An enormous dynamic developed around Schmotzer’s killing.
At the beginning, there was a great deal of anger and hatred. I understand that. I was angry too, and at that time I hated these four men, whom I personally regarded as animal killers.
But that is not a state anyone should want to remain in permanently, because it solves nothing.
The anger has faded somewhat. Many of the harshest texts have disappeared. Slowly, a more factual basis is returning to the debate.
And I have also noticed two groups on Facebook that are devoting themselves to the issue and to Schmotzer.
There is Thorsten Jochum with his project projekt-tyrv.de at:
And there is the Facebook page “Schmotzers Gesetz.”
I probably belong somewhere in this third group myself, with my thoughts, my blog and my attempt to find answers.
Not because I want to prove that the court decided wrongly. I do not know the complete file and I was not present at the hearing.
Something else troubles me.
I still find questions for which I cannot find a comprehensible public answer.
And as long as that remains the case, I will continue asking them.
The new video analysis
One of these developments emerged only after the criminal trial.
On 13 August, the Facebook page “Schmotzers Gesetz” published a detailed account of its own frame-by-frame analysis of the video.
According to the page’s operators, they now have an uncensored version of the recording. They state that the video was broken down into more than 1,500 individual frames and examined with technical and AI-supported assistance.
I cannot verify whether the file they possess is in fact the unchanged original video.
Nor do the conclusions drawn from the analysis constitute a court-appointed or veterinary expert opinion.
That has to be said before considering the results at all.
Nevertheless, I find the analysis interesting.
Not because it “proves” something that nobody had previously seen, but because it identifies specific movement sequences, looks more closely at particular moments in the recording and derives questions from them that could be professionally examined.
That is an important distinction.
If, for example, certain movements appear more coordinated than others, a layperson cannot suddenly conclude with certainty that Schmotzer was conscious.
But one can ask an expert whether that observation has any medical significance.
That is precisely what expert opinions are for.
A private video analysis should not replace an expert report.
But it may show where another, closer look could be worthwhile.
What I would like to see examined again
If I could ask for one thing, it would not be another argument about who is right on the internet.
I would like to see several questions examined again as soberly and professionally as possible.
For me, that begins with the video in the best available quality.
What file was actually provided to the expert? Was it the original or a compressed copy? What frame rate and resolution were available? Could a higher-quality version reveal additional movements relevant to veterinary assessment?
I would then ask an expert whether the different movement patterns visible over the course of the video are fully compatible with involuntary motor activity following a captive-bolt shot, or whether individual sequences justify further neurological assessment.
And then I would return to a much simpler question.
Is there a physical examination report concerning Schmotzer himself?
Because however interesting a frame-by-frame analysis may be, it does not change one fundamental fact:
The best video in the world cannot replace the body.
If Schmotzer’s remains were examined, that report would be extraordinarily important to me.
If they were not examined, or were no longer available, that too would be important information.
I still do not know which of those possibilities applies.
Perhaps this is now also about trust
The longer I deal with this case, the more I believe that part of the public debate is no longer only about whether four men were criminally guilty.
Trust that the death of an animal documented on video is investigated with the same care as any other case.
Trust that an alleged serious injury is verified.
Trust that an expert opinion is based on the best available material.
Trust that questions do not disappear simply because answering them is difficult.
And trust that an acquittal does not mean that nobody is allowed to ask how that result was reached.
That kind of trust does not arise from reassurance.
Nor does it arise from outrage.
It comes from transparency and comprehensibility.
Perhaps the most helpful response to many of the discussions surrounding Schmotzer would therefore not be another opinion about the judgment, but something much simpler: making as much verifiable information publicly accessible as possible, provided personal rights and legal limits allow it.
Because where facts are missing, stories emerge.
And with every repetition, stories can become remarkably persistent.
What remains after all this research
When I place everything I have been able to find about the Schmotzer case side by side today, I still do not get a completely closed picture.
Some things are well documented. Others are known from statements made by those involved or from the reasoning later made public by the court.
And then there are points where information is still missing for me.
I no longer see that as a weakness of this research.
The real weakness would be filling those gaps with assumptions simply to produce a neat and complete story.
My own questions have also changed during the course of examining this case.
At the beginning, I mainly wanted to understand how four acquittals could be reached despite the existence of a video whose images leave hardly anyone unmoved.
Today, other questions concern me just as much.
I want to know what injuries Schmotzer actually had before the camera was switched on. I want to know how those injuries were established and what objective evidence exists for them.
And I want to know whether it was possible to distinguish with certainty which injuries were already present beforehand and which arose only during the final minutes of his life.
An answer to that could change the story.
In either direction.
The question of Schmotzer’s body
One question has grown larger and larger during my research, even though at first it almost seemed secondary:
What happened to Schmotzer after his death?
What happened to his remains? Was his body examined? Was there a veterinary or pathological assessment? Were injuries documented? And if so, was it possible to establish which of them existed before the captive-bolt shot?
I have not yet found a publicly accessible source that reliably answers these questions.
Again, I must not draw a premature conclusion from that.
The fact that I have not found such a report does not mean that none existed. It may be part of the investigation file. It may have been discussed during the non-public hearing.
There may be a perfectly understandable answer that was simply never made public.
But until I know it, the question remains open.
And I think it matters.
If Schmotzer’s condition before he was killed played such an important role in assessing everything that happened afterwards, then naturally I am interested in the most obvious physical piece of evidence: Schmotzer himself.
For weeks, we have been talking about a video, individual movements, a captive-bolt shot, shovel blows and the question of consciousness and pain.
At the same time, I still do not know what happened to his body after those 55 seconds.
To me, that is a strange gap.
The question of the veterinarian remains
Of all the unanswered points, one keeps returning more persistently than any other:
Why was no veterinarian called?
Perhaps there is a convincing answer. Perhaps we simply do not know it.
Perhaps the situation really was so extraordinary that those involved believed they had to act immediately.
Again, I do not want to turn the absence of a public explanation into a ready-made accusation.
But I do want to understand how the decision was reached.
If Schmotzer really was so badly injured that they believed his suffering could only be ended by killing him, then someone must first have come to the conclusion that treatment was either no longer possible or no longer meaningful.
Who made that assessment?
Was an attempt made to reach a veterinarian? Was anyone called who could professionally assess Schmotzer’s condition? Was there any medical opinion outside the group?
And if not: why not?
Precisely because I am not a veterinarian myself, I would not trust myself to make such a decision.
I could probably recognise that an animal was injured. But determining whether it could still be saved, how much pain it was in and whether killing it was truly necessary would be something entirely different.
That is why this question is not a side issue for me.
It directly concerns the repeatedly stated intention to end Schmotzer’s suffering.
There is a step between wanting to spare an animal suffering and deciding to kill that animal yourself.
That is the step I want to understand.
Answers that exonerate also belong on the table
Something sometimes gets lost in the heated debate surrounding this case:
Not every answer to an open question has to be incriminating.
Suppose there was a documented attempt to reach a veterinarian.
Suppose Schmotzer’s serious injuries were indeed thoroughly established.
Suppose there was a comprehensible reason why veterinary assistance was no longer possible in that particular situation.
Those would be important pieces of information.
They might make parts of the story more understandable.
And that is exactly why I want to know them just as much as information that might create new doubts.
Research must not search only for things that confirm one’s own scepticism.
Otherwise it is no longer research.
It becomes nothing more than a search for ammunition for an opinion that was already settled beforehand.
I have already seen and read enough in this case to trouble me.
I do not need to dramatise anything further.
If an answer exonerates someone involved, it belongs on the table just as much as an answer that reveals a contradiction.
That is what I mean when I speak of a neutral examination.
Neutrality does not mean indifference.
I am certainly not indifferent to this case.
For me, neutrality means something else:
The value of an answer must not depend on whether I like it.
What I would like to see professionally reassessed
A further point has emerged with the frame-by-frame video analysis published on the Facebook page “Schmotzers Gesetz.”
The operators state that they possess an uncensored version of the video and have broken it down into more than 1,500 individual frames for analysis.
This is not a veterinary expert report.
Nor does it prove that Schmotzer was still conscious after the captive-bolt shot or that he was experiencing pain.
It must not be treated that way.
Nevertheless, I consider it interesting because it draws attention to specific movement sequences and particular moments in the recording.
If some later movements appear different from the immediate reactions following the captive-bolt shot, that is initially just an observation.
Whether that observation has medical significance should be assessed by a professional.
I would therefore like to know exactly what video material was available to the expert during the proceedings.
Was it the original file or a compressed copy? What resolution and frame rate did it have?
And could the movement details now being described play a role in a renewed veterinary assessment?
Perhaps the professional answer would ultimately be that all of these movements are fully compatible with involuntary motor activity.
That, too, would be an answer.
Perhaps further clarification would be needed.
Then we would have learned something from that as well.
Schmotzer must not disappear in all of this
Something strange happens when you spend enough time dealing with criminal proceedings.
At some point, you start talking about statutory provisions, jurisdiction, intent, expert witnesses, standards of proof and legal remedies.
An animal becomes a piece of evidence.
An event becomes a file.
A story becomes a case.
But at the beginning of all of this, there was a cat.
Schmotzer knew nothing about Section 222 of the Austrian Criminal Code. He knew nothing about a later trial and nothing about people analysing individual frames of a video months afterwards.
He was an animal who ended up in the hands of human beings that day and died.
Perhaps he had already been seriously injured. Perhaps he was already suffering greatly. Perhaps those involved genuinely believed they were helping him. Perhaps their assessment was wrong.
Perhaps we still do not know decisive parts of what happened.
That is exactly why I do not want to claim more than can be supported by evidence.
But neither do I want to stop asking questions simply because the answers are difficult to find.
For all the legal discussion, something very simple remains for me in the end:
If an animal dies under circumstances that leave this many questions behind, there should at least be an effort to answer those questions as carefully as possible.
Not for an internet debate.
Not for outrage.
And not so that someone can prove after the fact that they were right.
But for Schmotzer.
My very personal question for the future
Many regular readers of my blog know how much the future concerns me.
I do not mean the question of whether we will be travelling in flying cars ten years from now, whether artificial intelligence will eventually run every household or how artificial our food may become.
All of that may be technologically fascinating.
But for me, progress is decided somewhere else entirely.
What interests me is whether we will develop as human beings.
Whether we will eventually understand that animals are not simply things at our disposal, but equal fellow inhabitants of this planet.
Living beings capable of fear, pain and trust, and just as attached to their lives as we are.
Perhaps, several decades from now, people will look back on the way we treat animals today and wonder why it took us so long.
Why inflicting suffering on an animal still so often carries a different legal and social significance from deliberately inflicting severe suffering on a human being.
And why a small minority of people who deliberately cause animals pain can still hope that their behaviour will ultimately have only minor consequences, or none at all.
Other countries are at least further ahead when it comes to the criminal penalties available for serious animal cruelty.
In England and Wales, particularly serious animal welfare offences can result in prison sentences of up to five years. France also provides for sentences of up to five years for serious acts of cruelty that result in an animal’s death. Greece goes considerably further in certain particularly serious cases of abuse or killing and has introduced very severe penalties.
Of course, a higher maximum sentence alone does not solve the problem.
A law does not protect a single animal if nobody pays attention, if procedures fail or if the possibilities already available are not used.
But laws also show how much importance a society attaches to particular conduct.
Perhaps that is exactly the kind of future that interests me far more than any flying car.
Not a world with ever better technology.
But a world in which we have finally understood that strength does not lie in our ability to exercise power over weaker living beings.
It lies in protecting them.
Schmotzer will never experience that future.
But other animals might.
And perhaps that is the most important question this case leaves me with:
Are we prepared to develop not only technologically, but also as human beings?
Featured images created by ChatGPT based on prompts by me.
English translation by ChatGPT, faithfully adapted from my original German text while preserving its tone, meaning and personal voice.
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