So with budget cuts you might imagine that services get cut. Well our humane (animal control) department has been cut to nearly nothing. This means that we as officers have to go drag dead dogs out of the road, pick up wounded animals or strays and take them to the pound. I have been called to all manner of animal calls but my least favorite is cat calls. I don’t like cats. I see them as evil animals that are nothing more than parasites. But what bothers me more is perfectly healthy people call us to have a police officer come pick up a stray dog or cat that they have caught instead of taking it themselves. I guess it makes more sense to someone to have me take a cat to the pound then patrol for crime.
One night in January I was dispatched to “priority cat pick up” Apparently there was a feral cat in the neighborhood that had been run over by a car. I was ridding two man with my buddy Kenny that night who loves animals, most animals but cats. We arrive and the guy points to his bush out front and says there it is. Now Kenny has about 11 years of service on me so guess who gets to pick up this cat? Not Kenny.
So put on my leather gloves and duck down to take a peak. Holy crap this cat takes off across the yard using just its front legs as it appears to be paralyzed from about half way down its spine. I was blown away at how fast this thing was moving with just two legs. I am trying not to laugh as I am chasing this paraplegic cat around this guy’s front yard. The guy is watching so I don’t dare do the foot to the back of the neck trick to trap it down. So I get it cornered and reach down and grab it by the back of the neck, Ah ha, I got ya. Ironically the cat looks just like our own home cat Elvis. So I am walking it to the car and as I get to the car my buddy Kenny who is still laughing about me chasing the cat gets on the air and gives a “One in custody”. This is a joke because you normally say this when arrest someone, it starts the 24 hour clock for that person to see the judge. But in this circumstance it is just funny because it lets everyone that knows I am on a cat call that I just had a physical struggle with a cat. Well as Kenny opens the back door so can put the cat in the back the darn thing turns into my hand and bites me. Its top and bottom fangs penetrate the leather and both sink into my right index finger, “son of a …. “ Not realizing that the reporting party is still there, I throw the cat into the car and it bounces off of the Plexiglas divider. Kenny slams the door shut, and says, “Oh buddy, you got to be careful with cats, there unstable, there not like dogs”. I’m thinking, “thanks”.
I pull my glove off and blood is pouring out of my finger. I get a banaid out of my first aid kit and we head to the pound to drop of this devil animal. Well sometime during the engagement in the front yard, I became the arch enemy of this cat. As we are driving to the pound I am in the passenger side (with the prisoner behind me) and this possessed cat starts to climb under the seat to get to me. Not satisfied with finding a safe refuge under the seat it is trying to get me. I tell Kenny that this crazy cat is trying to get me and he starts laughing and so do I. I feel the car swerving with the waves of laughter from Kenny. Holy cow this cat has made its way up to have its head and front legs exposed under the front of my passenger side seat. I am trying to push it back with the heels of my boots but it is biting my boots and trying to mortally wound me. I can’t push it back so I grab my mag light and start pushing it to get it back under the seat. It won’t go its biting my aluminum flashlight to try to get me. By now I am starting to get concerned that it might make it into our passenger compartment and make us crash. So I am in the battle of wills, mine against this evil possessed paraplegic feral cat. I use my flashlight to deliver strikes to the head of this cat to try to drive it back, Kenny is laughing so hard he is about to crash our car. The cat is just hissing after each strike. Finally it ducks back under the seat to seek refuge from my three D cell mag light. I am wondering if it is just regrouping. It was right, it makes another charge, and I have to strike it again with my light, Hard. It pulls back under the seat and now I need to drive it back. The battle has been raging for about 5 min now. I start to swing my light side to side under the seat like ringing a bell. Except one side it hits the seat and the other the cats head. It finally recognizes my superior tactics and weapons systems and retreats to the back seat until we arrive at the pound.
The worker tries to catch it with a snare, but it out smarts him and seeks a tactical advantage under the seat. I know its game so I flush it out by “ringing the bell” at the front edge of the seat. It retreats again and then charges out of the front. I have to pin it down by the neck with my flash light holding it tight as the worker jumps over me to try to get the snare on. Finally, we have it hooked up and it is flailing around trying to free itself. He dumps it into a barrel and says “Holy …. That is a crazy cat” I said “tell me about it, I had to fight the thing the whole way here and got bit by it” So because I got bit they had to put it down right away and send it to the lab to get tested for disease. It came back negative. But I still had to go to the doctor and have them stick a syringe in it and flush out the car germs. That sucked.
The worst part of the whole ordeal was by the time I got back to the station it had been circulated that I got my ass kicked by a paraplegic feral cat. So now when I get dispatched to a “cat pick up” you will hear several officers key their mic and “meow”.
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