Today in 2006, Fred the cat went undercover in Brooklyn, helping police and the district attorney’s office bust a guy who was pretending to be a veterinarian.
Yes, it was an undercover cat!
His full name was Fred Wheezy; his name was a reference to a character in the Harry Potter books, and to the fact that when the animal control people found him living in an alley, he had one collapsed lung, another full of fluid and such a bad case of pneumonia that they didn’t expect him to live long.
But he did live, and he (and a littermate who would be named George) would end up being adopted by a woman in Brooklyn named Carol Moran.
It’s important to point out here that Carol Moran was a deputy district attorney in Brooklyn, and her office was investigating a guy who was apparently working as a veterinarian even though he wasn’t actually a vet.
So Moran and her colleagues decided to do a sting operation.
Fred would pose as a cat who needed to be neutered, which was a fitting role because he actually did need to be neutered.
They invited the not-vet to an apartment where they’d installed hidden cameras and mics, and then asked the guy to help control the pet population.
He agreed to neuter Fred for $135, and when he started taking the cat away, the authorities swooped in and arrested the guy.
The DA’s office held a press conference, with Fred front and center, and as soon as people heard the phrase “undercover cat,” the story made headlines all over the world.
The district attorney went on to give Fred a Law Enforcement Achievement Award; he would later appear in ads about animal adoption with stars like Mary Tyler Moore, and there was talk that he might visit schools to teach kids how to take care of pets.
But it seems like the notoriety never went to Fred’s head; according to the New York Times, his favorite rewards for his undercover investigative work were a small piece of bacon, and a nap.
A few years ago Michael Babcock of TMZ was doing a live interview with FOX 13 Tampa Bay.
But the discussion of celebrity news went off the rails when Babcock’s cat Blue decided to walk past the camera dressed as a sunflower.
Well, technically it was a sunflower cone the kitty was wearing while recovering from a cut on his ear.
A Detective. A Celebrity. And That Was Just Life No. 1. (New York Times)
Work from home: When you get upstaged by a cat wearing a sunflower (FOX 13 Tampa Bay via YouTube)
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Photo by WCN 24/7 via Flickr/Creative Commons
