I'll (F) leave ages out of this for privacy but months ago my little brother shot our family cat when he had a stroke as a "humane way" of putting him down. The cat was old, about 18 so he had arthritis, he was my brother's cat as he was pet of a litter of cats we got together as kids but my sister, parents, and I considered him the family pet as he was the last of the litter and the cat even lived with my little sister for a while. A few months ago he apparently he had either a seizure or stroke and was unable to get up, though nothing could be confirmed as my brother wouldn't wait to take him to the regular family vet and didn't call my sister or I to try and take him an emergency vet.

Instead, my brother took the cat out to some field and shot him in the head. When I confronted my brother about this he said it was because he didn't want to take him to a vet because the cat would be "panicking" and be freaked out by the lights, sounds, smells, etc or have to wait for paper work. My brother said that "he (the cat) looked at me and he knew it was time to go" and he kept iterating how much he loved the cat but did what was "the fastest way to help him. We also live in a state where this is a felony.

I explained to him that he wasn't a vet and that he had no idea if our family cat could recover or not, (I've had friends with 20yo cats that works have seizures but then be fine after a couple of hours). Vets would look at white blood cells, respiration, heart rate etc to help determine if the cat needed to be put down or not yet he was steadfast that he did what he thought was best. He apologized that we didn't get the chance to say goodbye, but didnt see what he did as wrong. Also as a side note, we live in an area where three emergency vets are within a 30 minute drive, not in the middle of nowhere.

I haven't spoken to him for months and haven't been to my parents because he lives there while going to school. I needed to essentially cut him out while I processed everything and talked to my own therapist about what to do. To me, what my brother did was not the reaction of someone normal. I thought he snapped (in the past he has punched through a window in anger) and even messaged his girlfriend on IG telling her what he did and that it was illegal and not a normal first reaction. His actions scared me and she had a cat as well.

The other day I went to my parents for Easter and I felt ready to talk to my brother again, I was hopeful as my mom told me he's been going to therapy and he even cried to her about the incident when they talked.

Unfortunately the conversation did not go well. I went in with the intent of wanting an actual apology and to at least see that he was remorseful /holding himself accountable because at the time of the incident I felt like my brother's apology was not sincere because it sounded like he was trying to justify his actions rather than take full accountability. My brother stated that it was a sincere apology as he was crying while texting it to the family.

He the went on saying he was angry at our sister and I for messaging his girlfriend, saying we were trying to "turn her against him." And then he told me that his friends thought we were bitches because he haven't been over to our parents since the incident and helped out with anything. That we only come for holidays and stay for a few hours and then he has the burden of being there for our mom. No one asked him to stay and he said he could even move out if he wanted. (For some context, the siblings' relationship with our dad is not good and I've done my fair share of help when I was a kid, cleaning up our alcohlic dad's vomit but that's for another time).

From my understanding, his anger at us from not being there lately stems from when my mom had to leave for a month suddenly due to a death in the family and he had to take our elderly dad to the hospital and dr appointment. My sister and I had no way of knowing that our dad needed assistance going to his visits, so I don't think it's fair to blame us for that. He also said he resents us for not being there for our mom during the holidays etc, yet didn't acknowledge that our parents and our sister came to my house during Christmas or that our sister usually goes over there 1-2x a month anyways when he's not there.

He kept harping on "having to live with it" (shooting the cat) and that he didn't want to stress anyone about vet bills but I told him that wasn't his decision to make. I told him I would've gladly taken the cat to an emergency vetand paid for the bills myself. And I told my brother that I wanted to know he was remorseful and showing accountability because it didn't seem that was via the texts and he was crying saying he was being accountable by living with what he did but at the same time he felt justified in his actions.

From the conversation, I believe my brother feels remorse about the situation but believes he was justified in how he handled it. He even said that I and our sister broke his trust because we messaged his girlfriend and because we weren't there for him or our mom (our mom knew why I didn't come over and she understood, she was also scared of him at one point) and I told him that I was genuinely scared of him because of what he did, as usually a person's first reaction is to get their cat help.

AITAH for cutting my brother out of my life for shooting the family cat and for warning his girlfriend?