Alphabet City Bodega Cat Attacked by Dog Owner; Cops on Hunt for Suspect

The shocking assault at East 9th Street and Avenue D left the feline badly injured, East Village animal lovers shaken, and a cruel maniac on the lam.

| 03 Feb 2025 | 12:41

Few crimes enrage a wider range of New Yorkers more than animal abuse.

Take the horrifying incident that happened within the confines of the 9th Precinct outside the Riverside Deli Market Corp., at 129 Ave. D on the southeast corner of East 9th Street, the details of which were only recently released.

In the plain but precise language of police:

“At approximately 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday, December 4, 2024, an unidentified individual did strike a cat with a wooden stool causing a broken jaw and fractured vertebrae in the neck and back. The cat was taken to Brooklyn Bridge Animal Welfare Coalition and listed in stable condition. The unidentified individual fled to parts unknown.”

Surveillance images, taken on the bodega’s 9th Street side, show a tall, thin man of dark complexion wearing a black puffer coat over a gray hoodie, gray sweatpants and gray sneakers. The suspect’s age is indeterminate but could range from 20s to 50s. In one picture, he’s carrying a thin white plastic bag.

A brief video released by NYPD adds a bit more context, as it shows the suspect, preceded by a medium-sized unleashed brown dog with a pink collar walking on East 9th Street, when, from against the Riverside Deli Market wall, a gray cat suddenly appears. Though both animals appear startled, they do not appear to fight.

When the dog owner walks by, he quickly grabs a wooden stool from the curbside trash, and brutally struck the unwitting feline. The highly disturbing video can be seen at the Instagram page of Brooklyn Cat Cafe, the pet adoption arm of the Brooklyn Bridge Animal Welfare Coalition.

On Sunday, Feb. 2, Straus News determined to learn more about what happened. What was the cat’s name? Was the feline or his owners need anything?

Though the Riverside Deli Market had no Internet presence, nor could a working telephone number be found, this reporter wasn’t overly concerned. It’s the edge of Alphabet City, it’s the people of the neighborhood who are most important.

And so, walking up Avenue D, first past the Lillian Wald Houses, and then the Jacob Riis Houses, there it was, the Riverside Deli Market . . . closed! What kind of bodega is closed at 3:30 in the afternoon? With no signs or announcements on their rolldown gate, the answer was likely a bodega that’s no longer in business.

This fact was confirmed a few steps away at the Loma Deli Market, an old-school Hispanic bodega, that was open at 133 Ave. D. The manager, Kojak, confirmed that Riverside Deli Market, which opened in 2014, had closed in late January.

Asked about the December cat attack, Kojak had heard the animal had suffered a fractured skull and was taken to Brooklyn but didn’t know any more.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or, for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X @NYPDTips. All calls are strictly confidential.

To support the Brooklyn Bridge Animal Welfare Coalition, which offers low-cost, high-quality veterinary services in addition to being a cat rescue shelter, visit their website at www.bbawc.org.

After Our Town Downtown went to print on Feb. 3, the Brooklyn Cat Cafe posted that the cat’s name was Norman; he was friendly despite his recent traumas and that he was soon going in for his second round of reconstructive surgery.