The folks at the Papago Court Apartments in Santa Rosa try not to show too much emotion.
Getting all weepy isn't often a good idea in a place known for gang activity and murders, but it hasn't been easy for 11-year-old Cesar Rojas to hide his feelings concerning the little kitten he found nearly burned to death.
He turns his head when visitors ask about the kitten he and a friend found cowering in the bushes June 19 after two older girls set it on fire.
"It was barely breathing when we got it," he said, his voice barely audible as he looked toward the ground. "It wanted to live."
Cesar saved the kitten's life when he picked it out of the bushes and brought it to the apartment manager, who contacted Forgotten Felines of Sonoma County, which took the injured animal to a veterinarian. It was an act of compassion that has been all but ignored amid the widespread outrage generated by the alleged cruelty of two 15-year-old girls.
The girls, whose names have not been released, were charged in Sonoma County Juvenile Court with felony cruelty to animals on Tuesday after they were identified by witnesses as the ones who burned the kitten.
Bay Area residents have donated money and support for the kitten, named Adam, and a region-wide call has gone out for prosecutors to throw the book at the girls, who could get up to three years in Juvenile Hall if they are found guilty. Before their arrest last week, a $10,000 reward had been offered for information leading to the prosecution of the culprits.
"I think it is disgusting that somebody could do that to an animal," said Shawna Shaffer, manager of the Papago Court apartments, who cared for the singed kitten until it was taken to the Animal Hospital of Cotati after Cesar and his friends carried it into her office. "In this area I've seen lot of things, but I've never seen anything like this. It made me want to cry."
It is a surreal situation for the mostly Latino residents of the Papago Apartments, who point out that there was no reward and not much concern around the Bay Area when a teenager was slain in the complex last summer. Jose Ayala Ramirez, 16, was shot in the head last August in what Santa Rosa police said was a gang-related shooting that has yet to be solved.
"People are angry and it was wrong, but it bothers me that they're doing so much for the cats and when a person gets killed they just let it pass," said Arturo Mendosa, 20, echoing what many others in the complex are saying. "It makes me angry that they're doing more for animals than for us."
Edgar Palominos, 14, said his brother was a good friend of the slain teen.
"If they really wanted to find the guy who killed him, they would have put up a reward like they did for the cat," he said.
The kitten was one of six feral littermates captured along with a male cat on a rural Santa Rosa farm and brought back to the trapper's apartment in the Apple Valley neighborhood. The plan was to get the cats spayed and neutered at Forgotten Felines of Sonoma County, a organization dedicated to humanely controlling wild cat populations. The cats were to be released after being sterilized.
The man left three cages on his porch overnight, but two of them were stolen, one with two kittens and the other with four, according to animal welfare workers. The male cat was left on the porch.
The girls allegedly poured an accelerant over the 8-week-old kitten while it was still caged and set it on fire.
Cesar told investigators and animal care workers that he and his friend heard some girls laughing, saw smoke and flames and heard a cat crying. When he went to investigate, the girls had left and the kitten had escaped from the charred cage, the door of which had broken off, and run off into the bushes next to Paulin Creek.
It suffered third degree burns over 45 percent of its body, losing its tail, the tips of its ears and much of the skin on its back, but it survived, animal care officials said.
Dori Villalon, director of Sonoma County Animal Care and Control, said witnesses came forward after the reward fund grew from $1,000 to $10,000. She said officers have not found the other kittens, but believe they were released.
Jennifer Kirchner, executive director of Forgotten Felines, is not so sure.
"The reason we're suspicious is that we never recovered the other trap, nor have we found any evidence of the other kittens," Kirchner said. "The kittens were wild so they would have headed for cover, but we would have expected someone to see something."
The burned kitten, meanwhile, endured a second surgery Wednesday in what is likely to be a series of operations. This surgery was to graft skin from its side onto its back.
Between kicking a soccer ball with his friends, Cesar said he is happy the kitten is still alive and angry at the girls accused of torching it.
"They should go to jail," he said, looking up momentarily, his eyes glaring with anger and pain before he turned away and ran off.
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