Okay, so anyone that suffered through my last rant is familiar with the fact that I abhor animal cruelty. So today I'm extending a little on that rant. I'll keep it short, promise.
Basically, the police officers who were charged with animal cruelty after dragging a kangaroo behind a ute to move it had the charges against them dropped. The Prosecutor for Public Affairs (I think that's the correct title...) said that it "wasn't in the interests of the public to have the matter go to court"
Um, why not?
Spokespeople for the police department were full of excuses as to why the officers shouldn't be blamed, including "they were just doing their job" "they're not trained to destroy or remove animals" "they were acting in good faith" "they tried several other methods" "they were trying to protect people and property".
Am I wrong in thinking that an average human being of average intelligence will realise that dragging an animal behind a moving vehicle will hurt it? I don't think so. Any idiot knows that if you need to transport an animal, there are much better ways of doing it.
Besides, there was a wildlife ranger there helping them. Surely they could have suggested something better? Like, say, an animal tranquilizer which would enable them to move the kangaroo in a van? Or at least ON the back of the ute?
I accidentally saw some of the footage of the whole fiasco, (you know, the part where they warn you it's disturbing) and almost burst into tears. The poor kangaroo kept getting up and trying to hop along with the ute, but couldn't, even though the ute was going fairly slowly. Then it fell down and got dragged again, at which point I had to look away. Although I did hear a bystander on the tape say, "They're strangling it!"
You know, it really all comes down to responsibility. The police department doesn't want to admit that its officers did anything wrong. To be honest, I don't care if they were "trying". They should have known better, and because of their actions, the poor animal was put through a lot of pain and died. It doesn't take much intelligence to know that you just don't drag animals behind cars, and if those police really didn't know any better, like we keep being told, then do we really want people like that in charge of our public safety and upholding the law? I don't think so.
It just sickens me that no one takes things like this seriously. Just because it was an animal, it doesn't mean that you should treat it disrespectfully. I'd like to try dragging those responsible behind a ute and see how THEY like it.
Whoops, my vengeful side coming out there.

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