Belmont woman says cat was shot with BB gun

BELMONT -- A Belmont woman is upset and scared after she says someone shot her cat with a BB gun.

Pointing to the stitched wound on her cat, Akilah, Renee Tracy said, "once I opened it up, this silver shine just reflected back to me and my stomach just sunk. I knew immediately what it was."

The two-year-old cat is still recovering, and skittish, after a terribly traumatizing incident right in their own Belmont neighborhood. Renee was in her yard last Thursday morning when her cat returned crying. He'd wandered off for just 10 minutes.

"I noticed this wet spot on his forehead. I was like what is that? And so I wiped it away, thinking it was water, and it came back as blood," she said.

MSPCA-Angell Medical Hospital confirmed they treated a cat shot by a BB gun. Akilah's owner is devastated, and desperate to know who did this.

"Absolutely vile and hateful"

"They've obviously chosen to shoot a very innocent being who cannot defend itself," she said.

The WBZ I-Team dug through Massachusetts Trial Court statistics which show that from 2019-2022, the number of animal cruelty cases increased by more than 70%. The FBI sees animal cruelty as a red flag. Tracy hopes someone in Belmont saw something.

"It's absolutely vile and it's hateful. It's just dangerous. And you just wonder what's next," Tracy said.