Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (DCP) Suzette Mar­tin is as­sur­ing the pub­lic that ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions are be­ing car­ried out in­to sev­er­al in­ci­dents of an­i­mal cru­el­ty in the Tal­paro/San Rafael area.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, she said the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) was alert­ed af­ter a video ap­peared on so­cial me­dia which al­leged­ly de­pict­ed acts of cru­el­ty be­ing com­mit­ted against an an­i­mal.

She ad­vised the pub­lic that the “in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­mains open and ac­tive, as well as ad­di­tion­al in­quiries are be­ing un­der­tak­en, in­clud­ing the in­ter­view­ing of rel­e­vant per­sons and the record­ing of state­ments, with a view to es­tab­lish­ing all of the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the al­le­ga­tions.”

In­di­cat­ing that all re­ports of an­i­mal cru­el­ty are tak­en very se­ri­ous­ly, she in­sist­ed, “Any al­le­ga­tion in­volv­ing the de­lib­er­ate abuse, mis­treat­ment, in­jury or killing of an an­i­mal will be thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

“And where the ev­i­dence es­tab­lish­es that a crim­i­nal of­fence has been com­mit­ted, the TTPS will take the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion to bring those re­spon­si­ble to jus­tice.”

Strong­ly con­demn­ing all forms of cru­el­ty to an­i­mals, Mar­tin urged the pub­lic to re­port any sus­pect­ed in­ci­dents of an­i­mal cru­el­ty to the TTPS.

“Per­sons who may have wit­nessed such acts, or who pos­sess pho­tographs, videos or oth­er in­for­ma­tion which may as­sist an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, are en­cour­aged to make a re­port at the near­est po­lice sta­tion,” she said.