December 8th, 2008 - 9:30p.m.

A family of four were irate and shaken tonight after one of them had his car stolen after being shot at tonight at a Washington Mutual bank branch, on the corner of Sherman Way and Vassar Avenue. Kami, a Canoga Park resident, said that he was approached at the bank's street-front ATM by a man holding a gun demanding money. When Kami explained that he was only checking his account to confirm that he was out of money, the man shot twice, and ran to Kami's car. The thief then broke the window and drove off. Kami was not injured.

Since the car was an older Mercedes Turbo-Diesel, Kami had taken the keys out, but left the car running with the doors locked. Kami's adult son who arrived on the scene minutes later explained that the thief appeared to be drunk and confused not to find keys in the car, even though the car was running. Both of them were thankful that Kami wasn't hit by either bullet as he ducked out of the way.

The officer on scene reported that the car had been recovered only a few blocks away on Burbank Boulevard. The police also recovered two shell casings which will be checked for prints, and they will check the ATM video tomorrow.

I understand being a young man, wanting to prove your manliness by shooting things, but cats? Really? Can't you go shoot at your friends or something?

We've had a couple of the cats we take care of (neuter, spay, feed, pet, try to protect) disappear for a couple days and then show up again with horrible wounds and we had no idea what had caused them. Marmalade, our confused, very feral but very sweet male had a big swollen cheek that finally burst and has subsided a couple weeks ago, and today, Cracker, our dirty white chubby cat showed up with a really bad limp and blood behind the leg.

I couldn't figure for the life of me why our cats were getting so hurt all the time, especially since I rarely hear the sounds of fighting anymore... That's when I caught the sound that answered those questions. There is nothing that sounds quite like an air rifle. It turns out I caught our neighbors taking pot-shots at our cats with a bb-gun for sport.

We went over looking for the kid that had the rifle, but he had mysteriously vanished. We explained to the family that we take care of the cats, and that now it's gonna cost us a lot of money to take her to the vet to get the BB removed, and that if we ever hear them shooting anything again we won't come over next time, we'll just call the cops and let them sort it out. I have been really really angry all day today. Seriously, why cats?

Fortunately, Cracker seems to be mostly okay. I still have to catch her and find a cheap vet to take her to. She was already not the most trusting of our clan, but now she's really really hard to approach. Gah. People suck. Anyway, if you're reading this, We could really use some financial help with her vet costs. There's a donate button on the right. It would mean a lot to Cracker and to us.