NEW YORK (WCBS) -- A community in Brooklyn is heartbroken after a beloved bodega cat was apparently stolen. The Innab family, who owns the Eighth Street Mini Market in Park Slope, had just opened up for the day on Thursday when the three-month-old kitten, named Jabal, wandered outside. “My dad noticed that the cat wasn’t inside, and he got very worried, so after that he looked at the surveillance,” Moe Innab said. Surveillance video captured the moment when a couple walked by. The man is seen swooping in, cradling Jabal, who seems to be squirming in the man’s arms. They then quickly took off. “To just steal a random cat outside, and it obviously wasn’t a stray cat,” Innab said. “It’s something I wouldn’t think of somebody doing in this neighborhood.” Innab says his father had just gotten Jabal to replace the bodega’s former mascot, Victoria, after she died. The kitten had a collar and was weeks away from getting microchipped. Neighbours were saddened to hear the news. “You gotta be a bad person to do that. It’s like really mean and everyone loved that cat,” neighbor Seb Mitchell said. “There’s so many animals that need places to live, so to take it from a loving owner is so ridiculous and horrible,” neighbour Hope Thompson said. “Every time I went into that deli, there would be a line of people just going and petting the cat and saying hi to it,” Mitchell said. “It was like a celebrity.” The family is offering a US$500 reward for Jabal’s safe return, no questions asked. “We all make mistakes. I’m no one to judge, you know. Maybe they weren’t in their right mind,” Innab said.
