LAST week, the papers (including this one) all reported about Angel Melendez, the subway “musician” arrested for having a kitten in the subway.

The Legal Aid Society cried foul (and called the media): Why was dear Mr. Melendez arrested and held for some 40 hours over a wee little unrestrained cat?

The answer is he’s a violent, homeless criminal who was probably using the kitten to garner more attention and money for himself, that’s why.

His lawyer from Legal Aid didn’t mention his 34 convictions, 14 different aliases, 10 different dates of birth and 20 different addresses.

What you also didn’t read in the news reports is that Angel refused to cooperate with police.

That’s why he was held so long. While the police were portrayed as over-the-top, ticket-writing zealots, the simple fact is, this was a great bit of police work.

“It’s just one of those irresistible stories – especially with a photo-ready kitten – that fits into a notion that just isn’t true,” says NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne.

And here Melendez is bitching to anyone who will listen about how unjust his 40-hour detention was.

But it took 11 hours alone just to fingerprint the uncooperative Melendez.

“You have somebody who is in violation of a relatively minor transit regulation, who gave officers a hard time and wouldn’t comply with an order,” Browne said.

Melendez refused to identify himself, having been a convicted felon.

“In taking those people out of the system, you’re very often stopping someone who’s first illegal act of the day may be fare evasion,” says Browne. “In this case, it was someone with an extensive record.”

None of the reports asked why the scared baby kitten was returned for further exposure to the elements of New York City’s streets, subways and homeless population – simply as a tool to get money.

Notice how you rarely see “street musicians” – code word for beggars – or panhandlers with adult animals or older children: The younger and cuter, the more coins likely to be thrown their way.

But here’s a man keeping a live animal in the subway system. He shouldn’t be rewarded with publicity and public sympathy. And the city certainly shouldn’t return to him an animal that he cannot care for.

The Melendez case and the resulting press attention are reminiscent of an incident last month, in which a pregnant teenager was ticketed for sitting on the subway steps, earning herself a place on the Daily News’ front page.

Here’s what really happened: The young woman was with a group of in-your-face, every-other-word-is-an-obscenity teenagers of the sort that noisily take over the subway and city streets everyday when schools lets out.

We’ve all been bum-rushed by them – trash-talking tough teens fresh from school and ready to verbally intimidate anyone in their path.

That’s why police officers were called to the Brooklyn subway station. When officers approached the group, which was sitting on the subway steps, they continued their cursing. Everyone except the six-months’ pregnant teen moved.

So she was appropriately ticketed.

And, just like the kitten, she was just too photo-ready for the press to resist.

Meanwhile, the smile on Angel’s face that had him looking like the cat who ate the canary probably had less, if anything, to do with the return of his poor doomed kitten – and more to do with the fact that he’d conned the city, once again.