The last few months of 2014 were just awful for me.  My uncle passed away suddenly a few weeks after my birthday.  The little gray kitten I adopted when I was in college passed away in October.  My grandmother-in-law passed away in November.  Just one thing after another, over and over again, with no real ending.  It took a toll on me, emotionally and physically.  I felt bad in my heart, and that left everything else feeling pretty bad, too.  Fortunately, I got a little help in the form of a furry black-and-white pick-me-up named Jasper, who is sitting on my lap right now as I write this, watching me with confused green eyes.  I was a late arrival to having a pet cat, but once I got my first one, I knew it was over.  Cats can make even the darkest day a little better, and they can even save lives.  A suicidal man was talked off of a ledge by police after his family brought his pet cat to the scene.

“Using the cat was ingenious,” said police spokesman Albie Esparza.  “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.”

The man was driven to the roof after being stopped by police.  He was driving a white Toyota Highlander with no plates.  The police checked the car on their computer and discovered it was stolen.  During that time the man fled into the building and got up to the third floor, where he dangled out a window and kept police busy for 3.5 hours.  However, when his family brought the cat, everything changed.  Within 45 minutes, they had the man back off the ledge and safely in custody.  Don’t worry; the police officers brought the cat over to the man in the back of the squad car so he could say goodbye before going off to the station.

Tags: cats, animals, unusual animals, animal rescue, san francisco, california, police use cat to lure jumper off ledge, jumper saved by cat, suicide jumper lured off ledge by his cat, cat saves suicide jumper, jumper stopped by cat, albie esparza, san francisco suicide stopped by jumper’s cat, pets

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