Also this issue:

Paki-Slammed
The feds' July 3 predawn raid in South Philly has the local Pakistani community crying foul.
-Daniel Brook

Over the Rainbow
Can an African-American woman represent the needs of black-and-white Grays Ferry?
-Jenn Carbin

Sins of the Fathers
Life has been tough for a couple of sons of bosses.
-Brendan McGarvey

Remembering Buddy
-Mary F. Patel

Fisher Swims Free for Now
-Daryl Gale

July 12-18, 2002

city beat

Play Missy for Me

Illustration By: don haring

A 14-year-old fur ball was the cat's meow in one North Philly neighborhood. Then she was killed by a pit bull.

by Deborah Bolling

For as long as most folks on the 5800 block of Torresdale Avenue can remember, Mischief, a gray, short-haired cat with white paws and bright-green eyes, would lounge on the steps of Lou’s Sportsman Café to soak up the sun. But on Monday afternoon, at around 2 o’clock, an 85-pound, brown-and-white pit bull lunged at Mischief, affectionately called Missy, ensnared her in his teeth and killed her.

Witnessed by at least five people, the incident has shaken and saddened this North Philly community, where the 14-year-old cat was well-known and well-liked.

“Missy would sit there on the steps all the time,” recalls Claire Spencer, 44, Missy’s owner since she was 6 weeks old. “She was very friendly; she liked everybody and she was very playful. Missy wasn’t afraid of dogs, at all. In fact, I’ve got a rottweiler at home, and they got along just fine.”

Spencer says the dog’s owner, a newcomer to the neighborhood known only as Hector, told her and others at the bar that afternoon that Missy had provoked the dog by lunging at him. But Spencer says this is highly unlikely, and eyewitness accounts don’t concur.

The dog owner could not be located for comment.

“This guy was walking his pit bull, and this pit bull was so big and so strong that he couldn’t hold him down,” says Mervel Duncan, 57, of Tulip Street. “The pit bull lunged at the cat, and he had her in his teeth and was shaking her. I tried to get the dog off. The owner tried to get the dog off. But the dog overpowered his owner, then turned around and bit him, too.”

Police at the 15th District say that because the dog was on a leash at the time, the cat’s owner has no legal recourse. They say the incident was immediately reported to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but nothing else will be done.

Duncan says that it was he who pulled Missy, mangled and bloody, from under the SUV that she ran to for cover.

“[The dog] had ripped her stomach open and he shook her like a rag doll for about 20 or 30 seconds,” he says. “Big as this dog was and as small as this cat was, the first time he bit her, he probably bit right through her ribs. Missy gave her last breath in my arms as I was walking back across the street.”

Spencer says that besides her rottweiler, she’s owned two other cats for the past three years.

“There’ll never be another Missy,” she says. “I had her cremated already. I couldn’t hold onto her. I’ve had her for 14 years and I’ll miss her terribly, but I’ve got to move on.”

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July 12, 2002
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