A feline was taken into custody after a brush with the “Nashville pawlice.” In a now viral TikTok video, the officer involved said the four-legged suspect was refusing to talk and he had yet to read him his “Meowanda” rights.
The video, uploaded by former Tennessee Department of Transportation employee, Steven County, shows a cat in the back of a Metro Nashville police vehicle. County said he was working the highway incident response unit in March of 2018 after a pickup truck carrying three passengers and a cat had hit a guardrail on Interstate 65 near the Harding Place exit.
All three passengers were transported to the hospital and the officer took the cat and kept him inside his vehicle to keep him safe from rush hour traffic. As County approached the officer to discuss the accident, he noticed he had the cat in the back seat. He knew he had to record it and send it to his wife, he told the Tennessean.
The cat was able to be reunited with his other family members about an hour later, said County.
County stumbled upon the video after seeing it in his saved folder. Despite the video being six years old, it made him laugh. County decided to share it so other people could enjoy it as well.
“It took off almost immediately and within 24hrs it had over 1 million views,” he said. “In the end, it is bringing a lot of joy and making a lot of people happy so that is all that matters.”
County, along with his wife, rescues and foster cats for the Animal Rescue Assistance Team Tennessee (ARATT) in Lewisburg, Tenn. Although he now works as a cybersecurity specialist, County fondly remembers TDOT and his previous colleagues.
“TDOT emergency highway responders are on the road to help people, if you see them, please move over and give them space to work safely,” he said. “If they are slowing traffic, known as a ‘slow roll; please do not pass them, they are trying to clear or move something/someone out of the roadway safely without stopping the interstate completely.”
Since being posted on Tuesday, the video has been viewed more than 2 million times and has received over 500,000 likes.
Diana Leyva covers trending news and service journalism for The Tennessean. Contact her at Dleyva@gannett.com or follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @_leyvadiana
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Watch: Why this kitty ended up Nashville ‘pawlice’ custody
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