Police Commissioner Comments on Animal Abuse Cases

Over the past few weeks, there has been an increase in reported animal abuse cases. Minister of Home Affairs, Kareem Musa, has explained that it is a criminal offence to hurt an animal. However, persons who have witnessed cruel acts against an animal say they constantly call the police to make a report but are turned away. We asked Police Commissioner Chester Williams about it. 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police:  “You know it’s not that we want to say that making sure that animals are treated humanely as not important but we are extremely stretched dealing with the current crime issue. Our numbers is depleting tremendously due to dismissals and attritions and these sort of things and we are waiting to get our recruit squadron training hopefully by the middle of this month and by March next year we can see our numbers begin to go up but it’s extremely tough for us with our human resources at this time.” 

 Reporter: OK but you call the police station, you tell them about an incidence of animal abuse that you see in front of your face now but then they will tell you that is not our job. 

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “I wouldn’t say it’s not the police responsibility because if anyone were to be charged for cruelty to animal it would be the police but I think that they would have expected that I don’t know if we have a Humane Society or something would intervene but the Humane Society does not have the power of arrest it is the police and so it certainly is a police issue.”