The brutal beating left the cat with serious injuries, though an ASPCA spokeswoman said it was “too soon to discuss a prognosis.”
A fluffy calico cat by the name of Nancy, snatched by a man who viciously bashed it against the tiled wall of a Brooklyn Chinese restaurant, was listed in grave condition Saturday, a spokesman for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said.
JEFF BACHNER/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Zaid Salah, accused of senselessly beating the cat, appears in Brooklyn Criminal Court on charges of animal cruelty Saturday.
“It is too soon to discuss a prognosis,” spokeswoman Natasha Whitling said about the critically injured cat, who was getting round-the-clock care at an animal hospital intensive care unit.
The mostly white cat with small patches of black and brown on her sides and tail, was abducted and then brutalized by 28-year-old Zaid Salah about 3 p.m. Friday.
A very disturbing video taken from inside the New People’s Restaurant shows Salah chasing the panicked cat into the takeout joint, wrestling the struggling animal down to the ground and then smashing it into the wall twice. A customer stands stunned and frozen while watching the scene in horror.
Salah finally slammed Nancy down on the restaurant counter and chucked the feline through an opening in a Plexiglass partition before feeling outside and lying on the sidewalk, witnesses said. When police arrived, Salah said that he had been attacked, according to cops.
The broken and battered feline was carefully and cautiously put into a box and handed over to the ASPCA for care.
Whitling described the attack “brutal.”
“This is a very serious case,” she said.
Nancy was given to the owners of the Seven & One Deli & Grocery on Fulton St. two weeks ago and she lived in the store. Salah grabbed the cat after workers found the man flopping around in the basement, officials said.
He underwent a psychological exam and was then charged with torturing and injuring an animal, a “misdemeanor” which could land him up to a year in jail.
His arraignment was pending as of yesterday, Saturday.
AARON SHOWALTER/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Ahmad Hussien, a proprietor of the Seven and One Deli and Grocery at the corner of Throop and Fulton Streets, was an owner of Nancy the cat, who was allegedly beaten by a man who had been hanging out at the deli Friday.
