Man wields baseball bat to get cat
DALLAS — Police are looking for a man who took his gray and blue short-haired cat from the Dallas Animal Shelter while fending off employees with a baseball bat, authorities said.
Kent Robertson, the shelter's manager, said the man came to the shelter in early October and found his cat among the other animals. The cat had been brought to the shelter by someone who thought it was a stray.
After employees told him he had to pay a $132 fee to take his cat, the unidentified man became upset.
The man returned Monday morning, signed into the guest book and took matters into his own hands. He loaded his cat into a carrier, without paying the fee, and threatened staff with the baseball bat, according to police.
He left in his 1986 brown Ford F-150, nearly running over two shelter employees, said Senior Cpl. Kevin Janse, a Dallas police spokesman. No one was struck or injured.
"I haven't ever experienced this before," Robertson said in a story for Tuesday's online edition of The Dallas Morning News. "Usually, people thank us for rescuing their animals. This was pretty extreme."
Cpl. Janse said police are searching for the man based on the name he used in the guest book, which Cpl. Janse declined to reveal. The man could be charged with aggravated robbery and two counts of aggravated assault.
