Baltimore Officer Who Saved Kitten Finds International Fame

Jon Boyer, a Baltimore police officer, is puzzled by his growing social media fame.

Boyer, along with his fellow police officers, rescue cats and dogs all the time, he says. But his actions have set women’s hearts aflutter.

“It’s kind of weird,” he told The Baltimore Sun. “It’s been a little different. I wasn’t expecting this, being a police officer.”

Boyer’s heartthrob status began a year ago, when someone at the Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter took a photo of Boyer with a kitten he’d rescued. The photo was sent to Baltimore's Show Your Soft Side campaign, which works to help abused pets. The 26-year-old officer modeled in that group’s Pawject Runway fundraising event, and all the single ladies had crushes.

The pace of his fame has picked up this month with stories about Boyer and his efforts to help animals running on The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and even a publication in the United Kingdom. The I Love Jon Boyer Facebook page has 4,400 likes, and fans sharing their adoration in notes on the site.

There’s been some teasing within the department, says WJZ TV, but the positive message is being well received.

“We have people who come to this job to save lives, and part of saving lives is obviously the human lives that we work to save, but the animal lives are just as important,”  Lt. Eric Kowalczyk, Baltimore City Police, told the TV station.