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(Newport Police)

Updated: April 28, 11:51 a.m

On Tuesday, the Newport Police Facebook page, which is possibly the best local police Facebook page in America, posted a picture of a cat in a tree.

But this was no regular cat-in-a-tree. The cat looked distressingly like it was holding an assault rifle.

Ultimately though, Newporters can breathe a sigh of relief, because according to the Newport Police, "Reports of an armed cat this morning were unfounded."

"The feline was contacted by our canine," the post continues, "and was determined to be in possession of a non-lethal branch."

Still, the Newport Police weren't going to let the cat off scot-free.

"The cat was given a verbal warning," Newport Police said on Facebook, "for posing with what could be mistaken as an assault rifle while wearing poor camouflage attire."

Over email, Kit O'Carra who runs the Newport Police Facebook page told us she found the picture online. We found an early iteration of the meme on Reddit from nine months ago.



"The photo has been circulating the Internet and Facebook since last July," she said, "perhaps even earlier."

"I wrote the post putting our spin on it and having a little fun with it," O'Carra added.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker