Butch, the cat, had a wild and unnerving experience on June 19 that has his owner, Gerrit Sturkenboom, worried for his safety.

Sturkenboom woke up Tuesday morning unable to find his adopted cat in or around his residence in downtown Kelowna, he told KelownaNow.

When he left the house to look outside, his neighbours alerted him that they had witnessed Butch being taken from the driveway of his residence at around 4:30 a.m. by a group of people, but were unable to retrieve him from the departing crew.

Sturkenboom said he made a Facebook post in an attempt to find the cat, to which a Facebook user replied that they had witnessed his cat being “dragged” around downtown on a rope leash.

Sturkenboom claims that he found his cat, Butch, in City Park across from Hotel Zed at around 10 p.m. tied to a shopping cart with a group of six people surrounding it.

“They denied that it was my cat, even with my pictures and his ear tattoo, they kept yelling and two of them were getting really aggressive so I had to call the police,” explained Sturkenboom.

“They kept trying to leave [with Butch] so I had to call a family member to help get my cat back from them because the police took 40 minutes.”

After retrieving his cat, Sturkenboom said that he told police on scene that he wanted to press charges but stated that the police wouldn’t let him.

RCMP allegedly told Sturkenboom that he did not have a solid case or sufficient evidence by which to prosecute the group.

KelownaNow reached out to RCMP but they did not respond by the time of publication.

“I think it’s ridiculous I can’t press charges. That person was found with my cat,” explained Sturkenboom.

Sturkenboom says that his cat likes to roam outside and he has difficulty restraining him from going outdoors. He is worried that a similar incident may happen again.

“It seems my only option is to buy him a tracking collar,” noted Sturkenboom. “But that won’t help if someone removes it.”

“He’s still outside and now [I have to] worry that somebody [is going to] take him. That’s not right,” Sturkenboom continued.