Justice found justice at the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office.
Justice, a 6-month-old black cat, is the DA’s mascot and his reign began sometime this summer, but its start was tragic.
It was sometime in June that Stephanie Franke, an assistant district attorney, was driving down the road on a rainy Friday when she saw someone throw a kitten out of a car window, District Attorney Luis V. Saenz said.
Franke stopped and picked up the battered kitten that was barely alive. The kitten, which was about 4 weeks old, had damage to its eyes and what appeared to be cuts to his face.
“It’s lunch time and Stephanie Franke comes in holding this battered little kitten. … It was bleeding from the eye, from the nose. He was shivering, he was just stunned. He’s not moving, he’s breathing really heavy,” Saenz said.
The district attorney decided he would care for the kitten.
Saenz said although he took the kitten home that day, he didn’t think it would survive the weekend because of its frail condition. He got up every couple of hours during the night to feed the kitten using a syringe and a baby bottle. “He looked like he wasn’t going to make it. I was shocked that he survived.”
Little by little the kitten recovered, with its eye getting better and the cuts on its face gone.
Saenz decided to take the kitten to his office and the staff participated in nursing the kitten back to health. The DA’s office has now become Justice’s home during the week. He spends the weekends at the homes of a couple of employees.
Justice got his name because of what the DA’s office stands for — Justice.
The black feline wanders around the office checking in on the employees and providing them with a type of therapy one would expect from a service animal. He takes naps during the day on a sofa in Saenz’s office.
“Even the maintenance lady says Justice has won the lottery,” Saenz said.
Saenz said when an employee is having a stressful moment at work the employee will search for Justice and pet the cat for awhile.
“He’s part of the family now and just does his thing all day. He doesn’t get in anybody’s way,” Saenz said, as Justice played with a ball of paper. “He’s taken a liking to the office.”
Justice has roughly seven to eight costumes that he wears during the holidays and on other occasions.
“He has more costume changes than Cher,” chimed in Victoria Cisneros, spokeswoman for the DA’s Office. He even has his own Instagram account.
“He talks to people that inbox him and you can see all his costumes there,” Cisneros said.
Cisneros said Justice arrived at the office at the right time because this was when employees at the DA’s office started to return to the office after working from home for months because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think that it did help people coming out of the pandemic with some of the heartaches that came with that,” Cisneros said.
