Police spokeswoman Officer Grace Gatpandan said he might be in an “altered state”.
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Police say the suspected auto thief ran from a traffic stop on Wednesday and spent more than three hours hanging out of a third-floor window, threatening to jump, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
SFPD credited the feline for the peaceful resolution to the stand off and the man was taken into custody.
CHP officers pulled over his white Toyota Highlander around 2:30 p.m. because it had no license plates, a spokesman told the local newspaper. The standoff took place over the span of three and a half hours.
Using his pet, hostage negotiators were able to convince him to go back inside the building, come down the stairs and surrender without incident. As the officer was taking down information, the man ran away.
But it was only when he saw his cat that he made a decision to come down.
A shirtless, handcuffed man is sitting in a police cruiser looking toward what appears to be his orange tabby in the arms of an officer in a photo posted on the California Highway Patrol San Francisco office’s official Twitter account.
‘A person’s love for their animal is unlike any other.
UPDATE 6:02 P.M.: The standoff has ended.
He had sat on a sidewalk as CHP officers questioned him – but when a computer check found the vehicle was stolen, he bolted and ran up the fire escape.
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I dont remember ever using a cat before, but it worked, Esparza said.
