San Mateo police are investigating an extreme case of animal cruelty, and they're asking the public for help in trying to find a suspect.
About one week ago, a stray neighborhood cat in San Mateo was shot, and paralyzed.
The cat's name is "Hope." Its hind legs are wrapped in bandages, her tail has been amputated, and she has to wear a diaper perhaps for the rest of her life. She's being treated at the Nine Lives Foundation in Redwood City. It's a "no kill" cat rescue center.
Hope seems to have come from the home of a man who had been hoarding dozens of stray cats, and who died recently. She was found on Iris Court, bloodied and paralyzed, after having been shot with some sort of pellet gun.
Kathryn Suski is the Neighborhood Watch block captain. She helped catch the injured cat. She described Hope as a sort of "neighborhood cat."
Dr. Monica Rudiger is the veterinarian who operated on Hope and owns the Nine Lives Foundation where the cat will most likely spend the rest of her life.
Rudiger believes stray and feral cats are innocents. That there wouldn't be a problem, if people would only spay and neuter their cats.
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"She didn't have to be living in a situation with 40 or 50 cats in a single household and this is the result of that, she'll never walk again," Rudiger said.
