Police use cat to talk suicidal man off a ledge

Police say the man, who had been driving a stolen Toyota, appeared to be in an “altered state”, KTVU reports. When a computer check showed that the vehicle was stolen, the man jumped to his feet and ducked into the building, CHP officials said.

Police shut down 10th Street and have climbed the fire escape and tried to talk the man down, according to San Francisco police. He emerged from a second-story window shirtless and barefoot, threatening to jump.

Large foam mattresses and padding mats were brought out and set up beneath the window as a safety precaution.

Police negotiators talked a suicidal man down from a third-story ledge using his ginger tabby cat – then arrested him. The standoff took place over the span of three and a half hours.

The driver jumped a fence and entered a two-story building on 10th Street near Harrison. The standoff at the South of Market area of San Francisco began around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday when a auto theft suspect ran from a traffic stop by the California Highway Patrol.

Negotiations to stop him from jumping took several hours. His family brought his cat to the scene, and the orange and white feline “helped to calm him”, according to CHP’s San Francisco office.

UPDATE 6:02 P.M.: The standoff has ended.

Alongside a picture of an officer in a bulletproof vest holding the cat, San Francisco police spokesman Grace Gatpandan tweeted: ‘Never underestimate the power of an owner’s love for their pet’.