Jabal, a Park Slope bodega cat, has been missing for nearly a week.
The adorable white cat was snatched from outside his home at Eighth Street Mini Market last Thursday — and his two suspected thieves were caught on camera walking down the sidewalk, holding Jabal.
The bodega’s owner said he’s only had Jabal for about a month. He got the cat as a replacement for his beloved former cat, Victoria, who died earlier this year.
“He’s like my baby,” Imad Innab, Jabal’s owner, said Monday. “After I had my Victoria, she died like three months ago, you know, she’d been with me like 17 years.”
Innab said he let Jabal outside to explore in front of the store, but shortly after the cat had vanished. The mystery cleared quickly when he checked the security tape and saw Jabal being carried away.
“I went outside and I was looking and there’s one guy i know… he said I just saw a man who went with your, you know, wasn’t sure it was your cat. It’s white cat,” Innab said.
Many in the Park Slope community sprang into action, making flyers and fundraising to help find the cat and the people who took him. Innab, known to most as Jimmy, has been something like a family member in this close-knit community for nearly 40 years.
“That’s all anybody’s talked about. One of our friends and neighbors who now lives in Paris, France, called me yesterday on the phone to tell me she had seen this online,” one neighbor said.
“Clearly he’s become symbolic of something much larger. And the community did rally because it seemed such an unnecessary event,” another neighbor said.
Innab said he received a call from the people claiming to have taken Jabal saying they would return the cat. Now, he’s just hoping they live up to their word.