{"id":347646,"date":"2026-09-15T20:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T20:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/347646\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T20:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T20:26:08","slug":"nyc-bodega-cat-returned-days-after-he-was-snatched-from-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/347646\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC bodega cat returned days after he was snatched from street"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cat-astrophe has ended.<\/p>\n

A beloved Park Slope bodega cat was reunited with his devoted owner Tuesday, just days after the feline was plucked off a Brooklyn street by a pair of accused cruel hipsters.<\/a><\/p>\n

Cops brought little Jabal to the 8th St. Mini Mart in the well-heeled Brooklyn neighborhood in the morning after one of the people accused of taking him turned him over to them \u2014 ending an intense neighborhood manhunt dedicated to returning the 3-month-old cat home.<\/p>\n

Jabal the bodega kitty was returned home Tuesday, days after he was snatched from the street. Paul Martinka for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThey put the bag there and opened the zipper,\u201d said Jabal\u2019s overjoyed owner, Imad \u201cJimmy\u201d Innab, to The Post, referring to the officers who returned the kitty to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe saw me and just jumped! He knows that I am the owner of him. I am his dad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been waiting and waiting and waiting. \u2026 I thank [the NYPD] and thank the community of neighbors and the 8th Street neighbors of Park Slope,\u201d Innab said. \u201cI thank them from my heart. This is too much for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The emotional homecoming was thanks to dedicated neighbors who convinced the pair who took the cat to right their wrong \u2014 despite the man and woman initially refusing to give Jabal back when a local neighbor confronted them and warned they had taken someone\u2019s pet rather than rescued a stray.<\/p>\n

One of the pair, a pink-haired woman, apparently realized she needed to give Jabal back \u2014 whether from guilt or fear of punishment for crime \u2014 but didn\u2019t feel comfortable returning the kitten herself.<\/p>\n

Cat owner Imad \u201cJimmy\u201d Innab said he\u2019d been \u201cwaiting and waiting and waiting\u201d for Jabal to come home. Paul Martinka for NY Post<\/p>\n

Instead, she sent a middleman to bring Jabal to the 78th precinct on Tuesday, and police delivered the kitten back to Innab\u2019s shop, neighbors said.<\/p>\n

The man and woman had snatched Jabal onThursday after spotting him as they walked down 8th Avenue \u2014 with the man wasting no time plucking the kitten off the pavement, security footage from the incident shows.<\/p>\n

Jabal seemingly makes an attempt to flee from the man\u2019s grasp, but the man tightened his grasp on the kitten.<\/p>\n

A witness told The Guardian<\/a> that the couple brought the cat to Bushwick.<\/p>\n

The incident ignited rage throughout the neighborhood \u2014 prompting a group of customers to take to the streets in search of the kitty and plaster missing posters throughout the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cJimmy and his family are such a huge part of our neighborhood and our community, and he\u2019s always been there for us through thick and thin. We all just support each other,\u201d said Danielle Barnett, who made missing posters for Jabal and whose kids plastered them throughout the area.<\/p>\n

Jabal instantly became a \u201ccelebrity\u201d since joining Innab\u2019s family a month ago, Barnett said.<\/p>\n

Locals Danielle Barnett (left) and Diana Poveromo join Innab in rejoicing at Jabal\u2019s return. Paul Martinka for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cJimmy just loved that cat, so when he disappeared, it was just a horrible thing for everybody. And it was, everyone was, it was crazy outrage across the board in our neighborhood and everyone just pitched in to help,\u201d Barnett said.<\/p>\n

Innab has said he wouldn\u2019t pursue the incident any further despite his brief heartbreak, which was especially painful considering Jabal was a new addition to his family after they lost 17-year-old cat, Victoria, just three months earlier.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear if the couple that picked up the cat off the street faced any consequences with the NYPD.<\/p>\n

While Innab rejoiced that the pair ultimately did the right thing by returning his kitten, he offered a warning to others who might think that picking any animal up off the street is a good idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople make mistakes, but mistakes like that \u2014 you can\u2019t mess with anybody, especially with the bodega cats, because they\u2019re going to catch you,\u201d Innab said. \u201cYou can\u2019t just take anything that doesn\u2019t belong to you. Just leave it. Leave it for their home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cat-astrophe has ended. A beloved Park Slope bodega cat was reunited with his devoted owner Tuesday, just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[275,98,6123,57,9,197,56,63,65,64,8005,58],"class_list":["post-347646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bodega","tag-brooklyn","tag-cats","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-life","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-park-slope","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}