In the early months of 1915, New York policemen knew unsavory characters had been living rent free in the dilapidated and seemingly abandoned building across the street from their station house in Brooklyn.  Finally, in late April, construction workers began demolishing the old building.  Only then did the policemen realize the scope of their problem.  As each floor was systematically disassembled, the unwelcome tenants just moved closer to street level.  The tenants that left the building took up residence in adjoining buildings or lived in the street.  They even began occupying the police station itself.  When policemen chased one away, it seemed that two or three more would take its place.  The New York Times reported, “Policemen who have faced all kinds of danger unflinchingly do not hesitate to say that it makes them feel decidedly uncomfortable.” That was an understatement.  The problem with the unwelcome tenants was out of control.  It affected all of the policemen in one way or another.  Some were unable to eat properly.  Others were unable to get a good night’s sleep.  Their work performance waned.  The whole area was going to pot.  The problem was not relegated to a single station house.  Other New York police station houses including Morrisania Police Station, Alexander Avenue station, and West 152d Street station were facing similar crises.               

In May 1915, the New York City Police Department added more than 100 new officers from a certain local tribe whose sole purpose was to rid their areas of the unwanted tenants by any means necessary.  A team of new officers at the Morrisania Police Station was led by an officer named Peter whom that station’s Lieutenant Peter Brady had adopted and named after himself years earlier.  In some cases, the police department filled the position by using the local homeless population, which solved two problems at the same time.  At the Alexander Avenue station, one new officer was not only homeless but nameless as well.  At the time of the New Yok Times’s report, the other officers at the Alexander Avenue station were trying to come up with a name for him.  One of the new officers at the Brooklyn Station who was described as being large and battle-scarred took the “by any means necessary” portion of his orders to heart.  The New York Times reported, “No count was kept of the number of [them] which [he] dispatched, but those he failed to slay he routed completely from the station house, so terrifying them that, according to the police, [none] since has had the temerity to show his nose in the place.”  With the help of the new officers, the crisis of the New York Police Department was resolved.  Why have you not heard of this murdering cop or his fellow officers who certainly performed similar atrocities against the unwelcome tenants?  They were from, as the New York Times reported, the “Feline Tribe.”  Those police officers and the unwelcome tenants were respectively… cats and rats.        

Source: New York Times, May 7, 1915, p. 23.