Cat - tastrophe!!

We had a church event last night and were running late. We hopped in the car and about 1 block from the house noticed a little boy, I would say between 5 & 7 looking as if he was "up to no good". We drove by slowly when we noticed that he was holding a cat. I continued to watch and became so upset when I saw that he was trying to force the cat's head in between the rod iron rales of a fence. I told Marty what it looked like to me and he slowed further as I watched closer. I was stunned with the boy walked out into the road and threw the cat into the curbside sewer. Marty u-turned in the road and before he could come to a complete stop I hopped out and asked this boy knowing full well what had happened, "what did you do with the cat son?" - he shook his head and told me, "It just fell in". I told him that I saw what he had done, that it was horrible. He continued to yell that it had fallen in. And I continued to say "Honey, I know exactly what happened. I saw the whole thing." By this point, Mart had gotten out of the car and began to address him also while I leaned into the sewer to look for the cat. I couldn't see it, but as I called out to it it would meow loudly, as if crying. It broke my heart. A couple of adults walked over to see what was going on just as the boy ran into his home crying.

We explained and one of them called 911 and informed us someone would arrive shortly. I knew it wouldn't be a priority. Unfortunately, with the storm that passed through and the outages crews were busy. The last thing they had time for was a cat, but we stayed and hoped we would see them come. Within 10 minutes we flagged down a passing police officer who came over and was so tiny it blew me away that she was a St. Louis cop. She was so sweet and reiterated that the day hadn't been the best across the board. After explaining the whole thing she agreed to stay until animal control came and took care of the cat. We all agreed that we needed to head to church.

All night all we could think about was that poor cat. We had been told that the cat was following the boy all day. They didn't think it belonged to anyone and it broke my heart further to think that this stray who had been so trusting was so mistreated. It is my hope that when the boy's parents arrived home that they addressed the whole thing with him. I know it is a fine line between animal abuse and abuse to people. Several times we admitted that we had the thought of adopting this cat, but agreed that we have never had a cat and don't know the first thing about them so also agreed that it wasn't feasable.

That said, I have called animal control and the humane society to try to find out how the cat is and neither place can tell me anything. I think I might just have to take a look for myself!!! Poor kitty!