I SHOULD HAVE LIED TO THE DETECTIVE.
I should have told her I have never seen the black cat “Dimer,” and knew nothing of his whereabouts.
Instead, I told the truth, and in so doing learned a valuable lesson. Honesty can get you nowhere fast in LA’s legal system.
My girlfriend Marisa and I gave Dimer to a pet adoption agency after he made countless intrusions into our home during the summer of 2006, entering through the pet door as we and Bella, our gray Persian, slept.
I can not describe how absurdly terrifying it is to be startled awake by the awful, high-pitched wale signifying a cat fight. Dimer ate Bella’s food, pissed on our rugs and raised hell several times a night, several nights a week. Bella — or I, in a horribly recurring nightmare — would chase him out.
To deter the intrusions, water guns and rattles were used and failed. Dimer, perhaps neglected at home, seemed determined to ruin ours.
Closing the pet door wasn’t an option, because Bella relieves herself outside. Besides, Marisa and I weren’t about to let our pet or ourselves be held hostage by a terrorizing feline.
Neighbors said Dimer belonged to Ted De Rang’d, an irritable, senile hippie, often watering the weeds in the front yard of the house he rents next to ours. They cautioned us not to approach 0him on the grounds he’s crazy and has a history of suing residents who don’t see things his way.
They suggested we take Dimer to the pound, where he’d be euthanized, or drop him off in a field far from Tarzana.
We just wanted to be good neighbors and get a good night’s rest without harming the cat. So I approached De Rang’d. He spoke at length about the need for effective communication, not like “Bush” and his “bombs.” After a few meetings, I realized De Rang’d had no intention of keeping Dimer in his house at night.
I said if Dimer continued to invade our home, we would give him away. He did, and we did.
For the next year, De Rang’d assailed Marisa and me in the streets, cursing and spitting. He called us cowards and said he would get revenge for taking his only friend away.
With or without Dimer, it seemed, we were becoming prisoners in our own home.
Last May, De Rang’d confused a nearby resident and his sister for me and Marisa, detaining them for an hour frothing and fuming about the cat he claimed they took from him.
Bella was missing when I returned home from work the next day. I called the police. They didn’t have to come far, serving a restraining order for another matter across the street.
De Rang’d peered out his window as I explained to officers why I believed he stole my cat. Then Bella showed up in our yard, suggesting I was paranoid or De Rang’d’s dumped her from his side of the fence.
Marisa left a message on De Rang’d’s answering machine politely stating that if he touched our cat or continued to threaten us — or people he mistook for us — we would request mental health services evaluate him, as the police advised we do.
Soon after, I received a phone call from LAPD Det. Jennifer Trappy. I assumed she was following up with the original call I made regarding Bella’s disappearance. No such luck. She was investigating Marisa’s “threatening message” left for De Rang’d.
After hearing the story, Trappy assured me the city attorney’s office would likely request a mediation meeting. Whatever would help enlighten De Rang’d despite his entitlement issues was fine by me, I told her.
Well, Marisa was summoned to appear at the Van Nuys court to answer charges she left a threatening message on De Rang’d’s answering machine. Unfortunately, the message didn’t exist. Neither the police nor city attorney’s office ever heard it.
The case was eventually dropped at the urging of a rational representative of the city attorney’s office, and soon after, De Rang’d wrote Marisa a conciliatory letter.
But justice didn’t come without headaches, and I now have first-hand experience that government is often a comedy of errors.
It’s nice seeing taxpayer money funding a legal bureaucracy that placates deranged citizens at the cost of those who are forced to take time, money and effort to rectify the mess.
Whenever the law encourages us to lie to protect our rights, we must challenge what’s wrong with it.
Otherwise, truth is worthless.
RYAN HYATT is a writer seeking a publisher for his second novel, “Stay Younger Longer,” a political thriller that takes place in LA in 2046. He
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 19, 2007. Read the original PDF.