Jabal, a Park Slope bodega cat, has been missing for nearly a week.
The adorable white cat was snatched from outside her home at the Eighth Avenue Mini Market last Thursday, and two suspected thieves were caught on camera walking down the sidewalk with Jabal in their arms.
The bodega owner said he had only been drinking Jabal for about a month. He got the cat to replace his beloved former cat, Victoria, who passed away earlier this year.
“He’s like my baby,” Jabal’s owner Imad Inab said Monday. “She passed away about three months ago after I gave birth to Victoria. She was with me for 17 years.”
Inab said she let Jabal out to explore the front of the store, but the cat disappeared shortly after. The mystery was quickly solved when he checked the security tape and saw Jabal being carried away.
“I went out and looked for it, and there was a guy I knew…he said he saw the guy who went with you, but he didn’t know if it was your cat or not. It’s a white cat,” Inab said.
Many people in the Park Slope community sprung into action, creating flyers and holding fundraisers to find the cats and the people who took them. Inab, known to many as Jimmy, has been like family in this close-knit community for nearly 40 years.
“That’s all everyone is talking about. One of our friends and neighbors who currently lives in Paris, France, called me on the phone yesterday and said he saw this online,” one neighbor said.
“Obviously he’s a symbol of something bigger, and the community rallied because it seemed like such an unnecessary event,” said another neighbor.
Inab said she received calls from people who claimed to have taken Jabal away and offered to return the cat. Now he just hopes they keep their promise.