crime – Page 15 – Pain In The Bud

Reason #127 To Keep Your Cats Indoors: Bad Guys

Neither the law nor other people will respect the bond you share with your cat.

“Hey! Sorry for stealing your cat. I felt really guilty about it, so I abandoned him by the side of the road in another town. Totes a bad impulse decision lol! I never meant to be the bad guy! I hope you can forgive me, but don’t worry, if you don’t I forgive you! Buh-bye!”

That about sums up the bizarre letter a Minnesota woman received on Dec. 11, three months after her cat, Dot, went missing.

She last saw Dot on Oct. 10, when Byron Thomas Vieau delivered a package to her home in Watertown, 20 miles west of Minneapolis. Vieau was visibly taken with Dot, the cat’s owner would later tell police, and bent down to pet the 12-year-old tabby as he delivered the package.

Security footage shows Vieau encountering Dot on his way over, and it’s clear the cat follows Vieau, but the 23-year-old Minnesota man likely nabbed Dot on the driver’s side while walking back to his truck because we don’t get an angle on the theft itself:

Vieau completed his delivery, and Dot was never seen again. Dot’s worried owner called the cops, who questioned Vieau, but he denied knowing anything about the missing moggie.

“Byron lied to me (twice) immediately after Dot was stolen, he lied to police the next day, I feel he is still lying about what he did to Dot,” Dot’s owner wrote in a Facebook post. “In my world this is such an unnecessary tragedy and I wish this upon nobody!”

Then in mid-December, Dot’s owner received this batshit-crazy letter from Vieau:

The letter reads:

Dear Heidi,

My name is Byron and I unfortunately made a poor judgment decision to take your cat. I cannot stress enough how sorry I am, I am a HUGE animal lover and I only wanted to have a pet of my own. It wasn’t meant to hurt anyone. I am so embaressed [sic]. I did make a bad impulse choice right outside of Watertown to let the cat go, I started feeling awful and quickly shoved the cat out of my car. I do not know where it went after that. This isn’t the story I gave you the first time, I felt so bad and I didn’t want to own up to things. I just wanted to take it home with me, but I quickly changed my mind. I never hurt it and I never meant to cause this much pain. I should have owned up sooner. I can only hope they can find it where I dropped it off. Again, I never meant to be a bad guy, I just wanted to give it a home. I’m so sorry for doing what I did. If you can’t find it in your heart to forgive me, I totally understand.

Byron Vieau
Dec. 11, 2019

What stands out is the lack of genuine awareness, of any consideration for the victim’s feelings or the welfare of the cat. Everything’s about Byron. Every sentence is “I wanted” and “I didn’t mean to” and “I can only hope.”

Every action is minimized: Byron Vieau didn’t steal the cat, he “made a poor judgment decision.” He’s a HUGE animal lover, and all he wanted was a pet of his own! Byron didn’t heartlessly shove a house cat — who doesn’t have the skills to survive as a stray — out of his car and abandon it on the roadside, he simply “made a bad impulse choice to let the cat go.”

Vieau tells us he was “embaressed,” he “didn’t want to hurt anyone,” and “never meant to be a bad guy.” He doesn’t mention how Heidi pleaded for the return of her beloved cat, or her anguished posts on Facebook as she asked for help looking for the “clearly well-loved” tabby.

He’s looking for forgiveness and absolution from his victim without troubling himself with considering her feelings, because he wants to feel better about what he did.

Police have arrested Vieau and charged him with misdemeanor theft and misdemeanor animal abandonment, which carry extremely light penalties. Under Minnesota law, Dot’s theft is a minor property crime of the same severity as the theft of say, a toaster, but not as severe as a shiny new flatscreen TV.

In the meantime, Dot is still MIA. Dot is primarily white and black, with traditional tabby markings on his head, and he weighed about 14 pounds at the time he was taken, according to police.

Any readers in the Carver County or Watertown area of Minnesota can call Detective Neil Kuhnau of the Carver County Sheriff’s Office at 952-361-1212 if they’ve spotted the missing moggie.

We hope Heidi and Dot are happily reunited.

Some Jerk Stole the Baby Yoda Cat

The sickly cat still needed veterinary care and wasn’t ready to go to a forever home yet.

Two weeks after a sickly stray named Joy was rescued off the streets, someone stole the still-ailing animal from the local Humane Society.

Thanks to her resemblance to the Internet-breaking Star Wars character, Joy and her story went viral, with kind donors opening up their wallets to help pay for the kitty’s veterinary bills. Per New York’s ABC affiliate:

A North Carolina woman found Joy with a large neck wound and an upper respiratory tract infection in mid-December. The woman asked Humane Society of Rowan County for help, and one of the non-profit’s veterinarians started treating Joy for her injuries. In the meantime, Joy captured the hearts of internet users for her resemblance to “The Child,” the breakout star from the “Star Wars: The Mandalorian” series.

In six days, Facebook users donated over $1,250 to help Humane Society of Rowan County pay for Joy’s medical bills.

But the story didn’t just attract the attention of the kind-hearted, and a few days ago someone made off with the viral feline after claiming Joy was their long-lost pet, according to the Humane Society of Rowan County.

A Star Wars fan who couldn’t wait to hand his or her money to Disney for a Baby Yoda doll decided to steal a cat who bears a resemblance to the character instead.

Making matters worse, Joy wasn’t ready for her forever home yet, and was supposed to remain under veterinary care and supervision while the Humane Society took applications from potential adopters.

It is with heavy hearts that we announce that Joy is no longer in our care. Joy was released without our knowledge or consent to a person claiming ownership.

It is likely that HSRC will still be responsible for Joy’s vet bills.

We wish we could provide more details but are unable to at this time. We pray that Joy, still with unhealed wounds and not fully recovered, will be given proper medical care and make a full recovery.

Return the cat, nerd! And while you’re at it, consider switching your allegiance to a decidedly more feline-friendly science fiction franchise. You’ll live long and prosper! 🙂

Meet Feline Police Pawfficer Donut, A Cat Who Raises Cash for Charity

Not to be outdone by K9 officers, one cat has become a “Pawfficer” in a Detroit suburb.

Community policing is the idea that people feel safer and are more likely to trust the police if officers are visible, accessible and know the people in the neighborhoods they patrol.

It’s a different model of policing, one that gets cops out of their patrol cars and onto sidewalks, parks and public events. Officers check in with local businesses, listen to concerns from the community and place a high priority on quality of life, acting on lessons learned from many research studies showing crime drops dramatically in places where there’s a stronger sense of community. (Community policing was the model used by the NYPD in the late 90s, dramatically transforming Manhattan’s worst neighborhoods.)

For example, drug dealers work corners in blighted neighborhoods where people won’t call the police, but they’re much less likely to extend their turf to places where people know their neighbors, take pride in their homes and don’t tolerate petty crime like graffiti and vandalism.

To help them connect with the local community, police in Troy, Michigan — a mostly suburban area north of Detroit — added a kitten to their force in 2018.

Pawfficer Donut of Troy Police Department — Pawfficer Donut is sworn in as a member of the Troy Police Department in 2018. Credit: Troy PD

Pawfficer Donut, as the tiny tabby is known, accompanies cops to local events, helps officers connect with kids in schools, and oversees regular meetups called “Coffee with Cops,” in which citizens can speak to officers in an informal setting to air concerns and provide feedback.

Now Pawfficer Donut is extending her beat to charitable fundraising, helping raise cash for Leuk’s Landing, a home for cats suffering from feline leukemia, and HAVEN, a group that aids victims of domestic violence.

For $25 you can support Donut’s fundraiser and get a sweet Feline Police Unit t-shirt. The proceeds go to the above-mentioned charities:

To purchase a t-shirt and help Pawfficer Donut with her fundraiser, click here.

Donut is a former shelter cat. To follow her adventures on pawtrol, you can subscribe to her Instagram account.

AAB1765B-4CA9-48EB-BDC9-445BE81DDC61 — Donut even has her own badge. Credit: Troy PD

Cat Caught Smuggling Drugs Into Russian Penal Colony

Russian inmates have been using cats as couriers for drugs like hash and heroin.

Apparently some criminals in Russia avoid jail sentences and are sent instead to penal colonies, which are closed compounds resembling Laconian communes instead of prison blocks.

And apparently using cats to smuggle drugs into penal colonies is a favorite pastime among the Russkies — every few months a new story hits the headlines, detailing doomed drug delivery operations using kitties as couriers.

The latest comes to us courtesy of Tatarstan, where an inmate’s non-incarcerated confederates withheld food from a cat for a few days, then slipped hash in a hidden sleeve in kitty’s collar before setting him loose near the penal colony.

The hungry cat headed toward the compound where an inmate was presumably waiting with pungent chow to lure his unsuspecting mule. But guards realized there was something odd about the cat, and after a short chase around the grounds they were able to corner the purrpetrator, according to the BBC.

Here’s the sneaky tortoiseshell immediately after penal colony guards intercepted him in late October. He doesn’t look happy that he’s been caught and he’s missed some meals:

Russian cat gets caught carrying drugs — Can we get some Friskies for this guy already?

Meanwhile in the city of Novomoskovsk a case against a local inmate is on the brink of collapse after the cat who allegedly delivered drugs to him managed to escape from custody.

The slippery kitty was allegedly an accomplished mule when authorities nabbed him and found heroin in his collar. Three witnesses told prosecutors the tabby was a reliable enough courier that his owner, Eduard Dolgintsev, took regular drug orders for other inmates, per Russian media reports.

Wanted: Russian drug mule — WANTED: Dmitry the Deliverator, on charges of delivering smack to Russian inmates and talking smack to Russian prosecutors

The defense isn’t buying it.

Dolgintsev’s attorney told Russian newspapers he wanted to run experiments to see if the cat really would make reliable runs to and from the penal colony, hoping to demonstrate to the court that the idea was more fanciful than feasible.

The cat, who was considered evidence in the case, was kept in a “secure location” in a petting zoo facility, but when Dolgintsev’s attorney went there to check on the feline he was told it had slipped custody earlier, when staff let it out of the enclosure to get exercise and two dogs began creating commotion.

With the kitty’s dramatic escape, the case against the inmate looks shaky. A Russian legal expert told Kommersant.ru that the case would be dismissed unless “proof was previously obtained that the cat really did serve as an instrument in the crime.” Proof like lab test results showing traces of heroin on the his fur, for instance.

In the meantime, a very interested Buddy is wondering if the same method could be used to smuggle catnip and silvervine into The Big House, aka Animal Control…

Drug smuggling cat — This photo shows the Houdini of Novomoskovsk before he hightailed it out of his holding pen.

Buddy Disputes Vile Lies About Cat Burglary!

The doggist lobby is creating fake news about cats. Those scoundrels shall be dealt with.

Buddy would like the public to know that vile anti-cat lies have been printed in the Charlotte Observer.

The newspaper alleges a burglar broke into a cat cafe called Gatos and Beans on Oct. 6 “and the cats did what cats do: absolutely nothing.”

The burglar smashed his way in by hurling a rock through a window while the cats “sat and watched,” the newspaper claimed.

As many as a dozen felines were inside Alabama’s first cat cafe at the time of the crime, with names like Velvet and Miss Tilly. None broke a nail during the ordeal, but were stressed out and needed a “snuggle” in the days that followed, the shop posted on Facebook.

Did absolutely nothing? Sat and watched?! Didn’t break a nail?!? Needed a snuggle?!?!?

These are outrageous lies perpetrated by a newspaper that clearly takes money from pro-dog lobby, which has a vested interest in making cats look bad.

Buddy rejects the insinuation that cats lay around and do nothing all day. A typical cat’s day is highly regimented and filled with activities such as eating, sleeping, grooming, sleeping, eating and sleeping, punctuated by energy-consuming bursts of important activity such as laser dot hunting and box-sitting.

Car beauty rest — “If you’re going to burgle, do it quietly. Some people are trying to sleep around here.”

If the burglar had broken in during a reasonable time, the kitties would have totally mauled him and held him down until the police arrived. Unfortunately, it appears the burglar was privy to the cats’ schedule and timed his break-in to coincide with Fourteenth Nap.

Buddy would like to remind everyone that cats are just as competent and badass as dogs when it comes to guarding and defending human abodes. Now if you’ll excuse him, it’s nap time.