Elderly Seattle cat suffers 'terror' from Blue Angels, feline's owner says in lawsuit

NBC News

2 days ago

The final days of a Seattle cat were spent in "terror" due to Blue Angels fighter pilots, before squadron leaders blocked the feline's human mother on social media in an act of "cowardly censorship," she said in a lawsuit filed this week.
Layla was 14 when she died on Aug. 11 last year following a battle with heart disease, which was allegedly exasperated by the Blue Angels flying overheard days — and one year — earlier, plaintiff Lauren Ann Lombardi said in her federal civil complaint.
The Blue Angels are the U.S. Navy's flight demonstration squadron and have been performing aerobatic maneuvers across the U.S. since 1946.
Lombardi had voiced her concerns about the impact of Blue Angels flying over Seattle in 2023, telling off the squadron in an expletive-laden tirade.
"Stop with your F----ing bullsh-- you are terrorizing my cat and all the other animals and wildlife," Lombardi wrote to the squadron via Instagram on Aug. 3 last year. "Nobody gives a f--- about your stupid little planes."
Lombardi, a paralegal in Seattle, was then allegedly blocked a short time later.
She tried to direct message the Blue Angels with a one-word response, "cowards" on Aug. 5 last year "which appeared to send but was never delivered due to the blocking," according to the lawsuit penned by the attorney Nacim Bouchtia, who is married to Lombardi and was listed as Layla's human father in the feline's obituary.
When the Blue Angels returned a year later, Layla had just come home from the animal hospital and was in the throes of her final battle with heart disease, Lombardi said.
Even though Layla was heavily sedated, her "primitive limbic system overruled her medication and she fled in primal panic beneath furniture, her labored breathing escalating to clinically dangerous levels," Bouchtia wrote.
Lombardi put thick blankets in windows and physically put her hands over Layla's ears "to no avail" as the cat's "walnut-sized brain" was stricken by "pure debilitating terror," the lawsuit said.
While her human didn't pin Layla's death on the Navy, the plaintiff lamented that the late feline "died knowing only fear when she should have known only love," Bouchtia wrote.
The crux of Layla's parents' lawsuit stems from the Blue Angels blocking Lombardi on Instagram, which was still in place on Thursday, according to the attorney.
Whether public officials or agencies can block individuals on social media is still a rather unsettled legal question.
Lombardi's lawsuit named Cdr. Adam Bryan, commanding officer of the Blue Angels, and Lt. Ben Bushong, the squadron's social media administrator, as defendants.
A representative of the Blue Angels could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday.
Lombardi is seeking to have the block lifted, an order that the Blue Angels not bar "anyone else" on "the basis of viewpoint" and attorneys' fees.
Even without the Lombardi and Bouchtia's dealings with the Blue Angels with Layla, they did not appear to be fans of the aviators.
They called their performances "auditory carpet bombing" with the "subtlety of a military occupation."
They described squad commanders as "emotionally fragile snowflakes" who blocked the plaintiff on social media, transforming "personal tragedy into Constitutional treason."
"Layla was the greatest cat that ever lived and her final days on this Earth were pockmarked by debilitating terror brought on my the actions of the United State Government," the plaintiff said.