Police: Father threatens his children, pet
SUMMIT TWP — A knife-wielding father remains jailed after state police say he threatened to kill his children and their pet cat during a fight at the family’s home.
No one was injured in the altercation last week but 49-year-old Michael E. Mazurek was arrested on felony and other charges.
Troopers were called shortly before 4 a.m. Thursday to the defendant’s home on Kennedy Lane for a family dispute. Police noted they have answered previous domestic-related calls there.
Mazurek’s 25-year-old son, Dylan Mazurek, told police that he was on his computer when his father came into the room with the family cat in hand and yelling.
The younger Mazurek described his father as “holding his cat and a 12 -inch sheath knife to the cat’s throat.”
The younger Mazurek recounted that he managed to wrest the feline away “with only a little hair being cut from it.” The older Mazurek, however, still allegedly had the knife.
He pointed the knife at his son, documents said, threatening to kill Dylan Mazurek and Dylan Mazurek’s 17-year-old brother.
The teenager, who had been sleeping before the family fight, corroborated his brother’s account.
Police said they found the father in his bedroom and he told them where they could find the knife — in a hidden compartment in the bed’s headboard.
“He stated he was mad and told (his older son) he was going to kill his son’s cat and him during an argument,” a police affidavit said, “but changed his mind when he heard another cat in the house.”
While being questioned, documents said, the suspect became “uncooperative” and had to have his hands cuffed.
Police said as they led Mazurek out of the house, they noticed a suspected marijuana pipe on a desk.
“The accused stated it was his,” the affidavit said, “and he smokes marijuana out of it.”
District Judge Dave Kovach arraigned Mazurek on a felony count of child endangerment and misdemeanor charges of terroristic threats, cruelty to animals, simple assault, reckless endangerment, harassment and possession of drug paraphernalia.
He was placed in the Butler County Prison on $25,000 bail.
According to documents, police asked Kovach for high bail “so that he will not have contact with the victims.”
Mazurek’s preliminary hearing is set at 1 p.m. Tuesday at the office of District Judge Lewis Stoughton in Chicora.
