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Kitty pity! Councilman rescues shot, pregnant cat from BQE

Kitty pity! Councilman rescues shot, pregnant cat from BQE
Vinny Spinola

Me-ouch! A Williamsburg councilman was repeatedly bitten by a pregnant and bullet-ridden cat when he tried to rescue it from the Brooklyn’s own circle of hell, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Now, the terrified kitty is recovering — and preparing to bring a litter into the world — at a rescue center where vets say they’ll remove the bullet after they remove the kittens.

It all started last Friday night when Councilman Steve Levin (D–WIlliamsburg) says he was driving toward Greenpoint on the highway when he saw the cat on the other side of the median limping toward Downtown. He then did what any Good Samaritan would do in that situation: call 911. But the 911 operator he reached did what any good 911 operator would do in that situation: told him it wasn’t an emergency.

That’s when Levin took things into his own hands. First, he asked his significant other to verify that it would be a good idea to double-back and save the cat.

“My girlfriend told me ‘This will bother you if you do not do it,’ ” he said.

So he exited the highway and got back on the other side where he stopped and picked up the cat as a police officer, who happened to be on the road, waited behind him to make sure Levin did not get hit by a car. But the officer could not stop the terrified animal from biting Levin hard on both hands as he wrangle the ferocious feline into his Ford Focus hatchback, which he apparently bought to replace his legendary Honda Civic.

Levin brought the cat to the nearby Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition where he asked an employee to get the still-freaking-out animal out of his Ford.

As soon as the staffers saw the frightened feline, they realized that she was pregnant and that she had been abused, said Vinny Spinola, the group’s vice president.

They X-rayed the animal and found a bullet lodged in her hip, along with many other puncture wounds, cuts, bruises that had all happened at different times, and the pads of its feet ripped off.

“This poor animal was abused over a long period of time,” said Spinola.

The staff named the cat “Loretta” and have been keeping a close eye on her. She is due to give birth in about a week, and the staff plans to perform surgery to remove the bullet the kittens come out.

Levin got to his scheduled meeting only a half an hour late, and later took himself to Methodist Hospital, where doctors gave him a tetanus shot and some antibiotics for his bite wounds.

Reach reporter Danielle Furfaro at dfurfaro@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260–2511. Follow her at twitter.com/DanielleFurfaro.
Long recovery: The pregnant cat that the staff at Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition has named Loretta suffered terribly at the hands of an abusive person who the staff says beat and shot the cat over a long period of time.
Vinny Spinola