Instead of the hot hoods of the police cars she squatted in the yard in the early days, she now prefers the humming ones of the photocopiers. It’s been over a year since Seventeen, a young wandering tabby cat, has set her first paw in the parking lot of the Albi police station (Tarn). At first shy, a few bowls of water and croquettes placed here and there ended up coaxing her. She attempted a foray inside. “And now when he happens to put his nose outside, it doesn’t last more than three minutes,” says V., one of the police officers from the night squad that Seventeen keeps company – unless it’s the reverse – when the animation falls back into the floors.
During the day, the cat has a predilection for the flagrante delicto office, where an officer is not stingy with treats. The “queen” has taken up residence, wandering around the building, bowls above the cupboard. At the end of 2021, when she landed, the police scoured the posters and notices of disappearance on the posts. After a few weeks V. and two of her colleagues took her to a veterinarian to find out if she was chipped. It wasn’t, even though she had been sterilized. “No one has ever recognized her, nor claimed her,” says one of her guardian angels. Not even since the opening of his Instagram account, which passed the milestone of 2,500 followers with the new year. Fueled in their spare time by the three civil servants, with the approval of their superiors, he brought Seventeen into the ranks of the police’s furry mascots, like Pirate the police cat of a police station in Seine-et-Marne or Mayreau, adopted by police. A celebrity who earned him a few Christmas parcels, toys or refined pies, left at the reception.
An effect on some suspects
But Dix-sept, who keeps his small character and does not always behave like a plush, does not only have the talent to give advice on prevention and to amuse netizens who love cute cats with his falls from the top of cupboards or his attempts to leave in intervention. Ella also has the gift of “placing the humans” in her little universe. “After interventions that were difficult to manage. We go home, we discuss between us, and then she arrives, she does three stupid things. It comforts us, it does us good, ”says V.
Seventeen also has the ability to point his nose to good effect in the premises of the Juvenile Squad, sometimes comforting victims by accepting petting. And since “she doesn’t have a filter”, she can’t tell the difference between good guys and bad guys. It therefore happens that his impromptu visit to an office brings down the pressure on the defendants. “It relaxes the guys on edge”, remarks V. The policeman has searched in vain, the unusual presence of this ball of fur has never generated “only positive feedback”.