S.F. police Officer Shawn Fulgado holds the cat that helped officers bring a suicidal man down to safety. Photo Courtesy of San Francisco Police Department
San Francisco police officers spent over three hours unsuccessfully trying to talk a suicidal man down off a window ledge. Then they switched to a more effective negotiator: the man’s cat.
The suspected car thief ran from a traffic stop on Wednesday and spent more than three hours hanging out of a third-floor window, threatening to jump, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The man wasn’t swayed by negotiators, or the man’s relatives who arrived at the scene, but when police realized they had also brought his pet orange-and-white cat, they were able to use his cat to pursuade him to surrender.
From the SFGate:
“Using the cat was ingenious,” said Officer Albie Esparza, a police spokesman. “Never underestimate the power of the love between people and their pets. I think it was great to think outside the box like the officers did. It made enough of an impact on this person to bring him down and come to his senses.”
Esparza said he never got the cat’s name, but he applauded the officers for their quick thinking, as well as their sensitivity. Even as the man was handcuffed and taken to a police car, officers brought the cat to him so he could see his beloved feline before going to jail.
