When a man threw a five-week-old kitten from the window of his car Friday, he didn't know the vehicle behind him belonged to an undercover officer with the Columbus Police Department.

Animal Control Officer Robert Davis, who was called by CPD to the scene, said the kitten landed in a ditch just off Highway 45 North near Plantation Drive and Huckleberry Drive, and though it seemed to be in shock, it was otherwise unscathed.

The driver, whose name was not released, told Davis the kitten had meowed incessantly all day and the previous night, and it was getting on his nerves, so he threw it out the passenger window. Davis said the man's five-year-old son was with him at the time.

In addition to giving the driver a $200 citation for animal cruelty, Davis also lectured him about the poor example he was providing his son.

"I let him know, if that animal had been maimed or had a broken leg or something, he could have been charged with a felony," Davis said. "He said he didn't know that."

The male kitten, a medium-haired tabby, was taken to the Columbus-Lowndes Humane Society and became available for adoption today.

The kitten has been weaned and is eating and drinking, with no signs of injury, said Karen Johnwick, director of the Columbus-Lowndes Humane Society. Shelter workers have nicknamed him "Tuff Tommy."

Davis said he responds to similar calls several times a year.

"I've seen it and heard about it," he said. "Somebody calls and says a kitten or puppy was thrown out the window of a moving vehicle. Normally, the person doesn't get caught, but this time, luckily, the police were behind him."

Johnwick said she doesn't see cases like this often, but any one she does see is one too many.

"We get maybe three to six cases a year of an animal being tossed out of a vehicle or over a bridge," she said.

Columbus resident Heather Reynolds said Monday evening that during the 10 years she worked as a veterinary technician, she saw several cases, but the one she will never forget is the Siamese kitten thrown from the window of a moving car. Though it survived, the kitten suffered neurological defects due to the head trauma it experienced.

Reynolds said she feels the penalties for animal abuse should be stricter, and she would have liked to have seen a harsher penalty for this recent case.

"I would think as malicious as the intent was that it should have been enough to charge him with a felony," Reynolds said. "If you're going to throw a kitten out the window, you don't care what happens to that kitten. It was just by the grace of God it survived. It's not right to pick on someone or something smaller and more helpless than you are. It's abuse. That's a lucky kitten."

In 2011 Mississippi enacted felony penalties for some acts of animal cruelty against dogs and cats. Under the law, a person convicted of second offense aggravated cruelty to a dog or cat within five years of the first offense could receive a fine up to $5,000 and one to five years' imprisonment.