Formal Apology for Trapped Cat Incident, Policy Changed

Falls Church City Manager Dan McKeever issued a formal apology and announced a change in City policy at Monday's City Council meeting following an internal City Hall review of circumstances that resulted in the failure to rescue a house cat stuck in a City storm drain last month.

The unfortunate demise of Tuffy, the cat owned by long-time City residents Stan and Rosemary Hayes Jones, occurred when City public works crews arrived too late to save the injured cat trapped in a storm drain.

The incident received notoriety from an angry letter to the editor the Joneses submitted to the News-Press. It reported that the City's animal warden insisted nothing could be done until the next day when contacted in the early evening about the trapped cat, which could be heard meowing in the drain.

At dawn the next morning, the by-then desperate owners reached a City Council member at home, who called the City Manager at home. McKeever immediately dispatched a City public works crew to gain entry to the drain. By then, however, the cat had died.

McKeever announced Monday that a City policy stipulating that City police officers are empowered to contact and dispatch City public works crews at any time deemed necessary will now be formalized and put in writing.

He suggested that the policy was already in place, which would have enabled the animal warden to deploy crews the night before, but was not written down, thus causing some confusion.

McKeever also apologized on behalf of the City for the Tuffy incident.

Mayor Dan Gardner, upon hearing the report, clarified that a police officer is more than "empowered" in such cases. "You mean the officer is not just empowered to, but will, deploy the crews, right?," Gardner asked. McKeever nodded yes.