After attempted cat-napping in Lincoln, police ask for help finding woman in video

You could say Mo the cat escaped by a whisker. Lincoln police are asking the public's help identifying a woman who they say took the brown tabby from a porch Wednesday evening near 48th and Holdrege Streets and tried to put it in the backseat of a car. Officer Angela Sands, spokeswoman for the Lincoln Police Department, said a man told police the incident was captured by a surveillance camera on his front porch. A video shows Mo resting on a front porch as a blonde-haired woman walks up to him. She reaches her hands out to him, but Mo backs away. The woman reaches out again, grabs him from behind and pulls him toward her. She then carries the cat toward a green sedan that pulled up along the curb in front of the house. As the woman attempts to get into the back seat of the car, Mo jumps from her arms, bolts toward the house, then saunters back onto the porch as the car with the woman in it pulls away. Sands said Lincoln police have asked local media to post the video with that hope someone can identify the woman. Sands said police want to talk to her about the incident. Pet thefts are uncommon, she said, although last month the department received a report about puppy taken from an apartment. Sands said it is possible the woman in Wednesday's incident might have had a legitimate reason to try taking the cat. The woman, for example, might have lost a cat and thought Mo was hers. But Sands said it looks like an attempted cat theft, based on the video and a report by the responding officer. The man who reported the incident, Samuel Evertson, said he's had Mo for eight years and has no idea who the woman in the video is. He said he and his wife were sitting in their living room watching TV as it happened about 8 p.m. Evertson said he didn't realize someone had tried taking Mo until his smartphone alerted him that his porch camera had captured something. Evertson said Mo is an indoor cat, but he'll occasionally let him rest on the porch to get some fresh air. He said Mo is a great kitty, and the couple is now keeping an extra good eye on him.