This morning, Police Commissioner Chester Williams addressed the controversial incident in which police shot a dog during a domestic dispute response in Benque Viejo del Carmen, Cayo.
Williams said that initially, there were claims that officers had unnecessarily shot the dog, but further details revealed the police were responding to a domestic violence call.
“Domestic situations are not things that we take very lightly because we can see where it can go from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds,” Williams stated. He added that upon arriving at the scene, the officers encountered the dog, which attacked after coming out of a confined veranda.
Williams said that this prompted the officers to shoot the dog in self-defence. “The police had no choice but to shoot the dog,” Williams said. The dog was taken to a vet but later succumbed to its injuries.
When police returned to the house the following day, “The corporal was met with a great deal of hostility from the young man and his brother, who, as you can see, just stood at the gate with machetes shouting and insulting the police in the most derogatory manner.”
Williams confirmed that he ordered the two men involved to be arrested for insulting police and aggravated assault. One of the men is possibly facing an additional charge of theft after the common-law wife reported that he had stolen her phone.
“We can’t have situations where people are openly insulting police, obstructing the police from carrying out their duties, and we just leave it at that. It is going to send a wrong signal to the public,” he said.
Williams also defended a difference between this case and the case involving the Governor General’s dog that was also fatally shot. Williams stood firm that the video footage showed former PC Deandre Reid killing the dog that was “not aggressing him.”
He said that this case involved a dog that “aggressed the officers, and the officers did what they needed to have done to protect themselves.”
