Cat Ladies Controversy Heats Up With Arrest Of "Susan" For Not-Exactly-A-Felony First Degree "Ground Feeding"

Stock photo, blog post by John Hoff

There has been a dramatic new development in the "Cat Ladies Controversy" this blogger previously covered, click here and also here. The cat lady known as "Susan" was arrested in the last few days and jailed.

Susan, whose relationship to Ultimate Cat Lady Joy Mattice is like that of Robin to Batman, or Hawthorne Hawkman to Johnny Northside, was reportedly near 111 22nd Ave. N., on the property of Atomic Recycling, LLC.  Mattice claims she has permission to be on that property and feed an old orange tabby cat named "Leo" who has been around the property for as long as 12 years. However, "Dean and Dale" have a restraining order on Joy Mattice, and live around the corner.

Joy wasn't at the Atomic Recycling property this particular day. Susan was there. And Susan believed she had permission to be on the property...

Kind Cat Lady Of NoMi Receives Minor "Slap On The Wrist" For Attempts To Help Strays (Part One Of Two)

Photo, blog post by John Hoff

"There were four shootings this week," Janet Joy Mattice told me during her criminal arraignment on Halloween, shaking her gray head disgustedly. "And they are on me about feeding cats."

And Then They Were Upon Her

But "on her" they were. Janet (who goes by her middle name, Joy) had a perfect record except for one minor traffic violation. She is the widow of a retired Minneapolis police officer and, during the administration of Governor Rudy Perpich, Mattice received a proclamation in her honor for years of work in the area of animal welfare including changes made in state law as a result of her efforts. In the photo above, Mattice holds a copy of the proclamation in question.

If you talk to Mattice for any length of time she will soon tell you about her rescues of dogs and cats that have been hung, doused with fuel, and all manner of terrible things that happen to the animals she loves and to which she has virtually devoted her whole life. Mattice was born in 1936, so that's a lot of life.

Though Mattice had been helping strays for a long time it appears the mortgage crisis in North Minneapolis has, in the last few years, produced a "perfect storm" of animal overpopulation versus Janet Joy Mattice's energetic and admittedly stubborn attempts to help stray animals. Mattice uses traps to catch cats, has the cats spayed or neutered, and then releases the cats again. Mattice points out (with the paper documentation to prove it) that...

Community Emotions Run Red Hot Over Issue Of "Cat Samaritans" Facing Charges For Allegedly "Ground Feeding" Stray Felines In North Minneapolis...

Photo, blog post by John Hoff

Monthly "Dessert With Don" meetings are always fun, a colorful exchange of ideas and information between powerful elected officials and any common citizen who shows up for free cookies like a stray cat looking for a handout.

But Monday's meeting was especially filled with emotion over this month's topic of Animal Control. The actions and fate of two individuals dominated discussion: Joy Mattice, the famous "cat lady of North Minneapolis," and another woman named Susan (I do not have her last name) are facing criminal charges for allegedly "ground feeding" stray cats in North Minneapolis.

Allegedly Did What She Freely Admits To Doing

That word "allegedly" applies only to Susan, the second woman charged. In extensive media coverage about the charges against her, Joy admits to feeding stray cats, click here. 

Before getting into the nitty gritty of this meeting, including a particularly driven woman who was proposing some kind of "final solution" to the city's raccoon issues, I would like to put forward a fairly extensive disclaimer about Joy Mattice...