The sight of a cat's bloody carcass – and the tears of its mourning family – just about broke Sacramento Police Officer Balwant Jagur's heart.
It was the sad setting he stepped into in the early morning hours of Oct. 23, when Becky Hildebrandt called police to her Las Animas Circle home in Robla. She had been awakened at 3 a.m. by the sound of two stray pit bulls tearing apart her garage.
They also tore apart her 10-year-old daughter's cat.
"It was horrible," Hildebrandt remembered this week. She was so hysterical, she said, that dispatchers couldn't understand what she was calling to report.
"(The mother and daughter) were really distraught over the whole thing," said Jagur, 29, who works graveyard patrol in the city's north end.
At his own home, Jagur had six 8-week-old kittens in need of a home. So he offered one to Hildebrandt, who later said she was hesitant to accept after the loss of Little Ben had caused so much trauma.
She also wasn't so sure he'd actually follow through.
But true to his word, Jagur returned home and picked out his most handsome kitten, a black-and-white cat with a marking like a mask. He returned to the Las Animas Circle home the next day and dropped off the kitten.
He hoped the gift would bring a "little more joy to their life."
Hildebrandt said the kitten is a happy addition. Her daughter has become very protective of her new friend, which she calls Scooby.
"But I call it Chubby Bunny," Hildebrandt said, "because it's getting fat."
Call The Bee's Kim Minugh, (916) 321-1038.
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