LA County woman says Amazon delivery driver stole her family's cat
A Los Angeles County woman is pleading for the safe return of her cat, Piper, who she says was stolen by an Amazon delivery driver dropping a package off at her home last week.
It happened on December 11 at around 6:15 p.m., according to Diane Huff-Medina, who lives in Lakewood.
Huff-Medina shared surveillance camera footage from her home that shows the driver leaving a package at her doorstep before snapping a photo. The driver then turns his attention to the family's 6-year-old Siamese cat.
"She's a friendly cat," Huff-Medina said. "She'll come up and talk to you."
The driver is seen petting the cat for a few moments before he tries to pick her up. Eventually, he's able to grab Piper by the scruff of her neck and carry her to his car, but only after she tries to bite him, Huff-Medina said.
"You can hear her meowing," Huff-Medina said while talking about the video. "This part is kind of disturbing ... because she's meowing at first, like normal. Then it sounds a little more distressed. ... Then he just kinda more aggressively grabs her and carries her off like a raccoon or something. ... It didn't look like he was trying to save her, I don't think."
Huff-Medina called the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to report the incident. When she spoke with a deputy on Sunday, she says that they told her to have a different deputy would contact her on Wednesday to officially file the report. However, after being contacted by CBS Los Angeles, Huff-Medina said that a report was filed on Monday night.
She also says that they contacted Amazon to try and speak with a customer service representative, but that no one was available at the time. The next day, a company official said that they were launching an investigation into the incident and that they had identified the driver.
In a request for comment on the driver, an Amazon spokesperson referred CBS Los Angeles to a third-party partner program that they say employs the driver.
Huff-Medina had a simple message for the driver.
"Please bring her back. That's all I want out of this," she said. "I just want my cat back for myself and for my kids, especially. I have three little boys who love her. We want her back."
