A Studio City man says surveillance video caught an Uber Eats driver picking up his family’s now missing cat and putting the feline in her car.
Patrick Lewis told KTLA the incident occurred June 15, when the driver was delivering food to his neighbor. Video he shared with KTLA clearly shows a woman picking up the 18-year-old cat and putting her in the car.
When Hog didn’t return home, as she routinely does, Lewis started searching for the feline, and instead found her ID tag on the ground. He eventually got a hold of the security video from the building.
When Lewis first saw the footage he thought maybe it was a mix up, and the driver thought Hog was a stray. But his neighbor said the delivery person made no mention of finding a missing cat.
“I need to believe it was a mistake, I’m holding on to a hope that she thought it was just a stray cat and she just has her and that eventually she’ll come home,” Lewis said.
“For reasons that I don’t understand, the driver got out of her car and just immediately grabbed her. She was trying to fight the driver, so the driver managed to get her in the car, and then delivered food to our upstairs neighbor and then drove off,” he added.
“The boys miss her, the entire neighborhood misses her. She even inspired portraits by neighbors through the years,” Lewis said in the post describing Hog, who he found in the streets of Brooklyn when she was just a few days old.
Since then, Lewis and his family have posted flyers of Hog around their neighborhood, called shelters and even filed a theft report with the Los Angeles Police Department’s North Hollywood station.
He posted the video on Instagram, and he said he also shared it with Uber Eats.
In an emailed statement, Uber Eats called the incident “unacceptable.”
“We are working to get the cat returned, stand ready to help in the police investigation, and will take the appropriate action against the delivery person,” the statement read.