Email

Print

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"As I have said before in other interviews, we really and truly do our best to hold officers accountable and if we don't, you the media would be right up our 'A'. But we don't do it because we don't want you to be intrusive in us, we do it because it's the right thing to do. The public requires accountability from us and that's why when people say that me as commissioner, I am too much in the media, I don't believe I'm in the media enough. Because as a public official, I am accountable to the public and this is my way of accounting to the public in terms of what we do. So when it comes to police officers who commit these grave infractions, we have to do what is right. The matter went before the tribunal, the tribunal found him guilty, dismissal was recommended and I upheld the decision of the adjudicator. I believe that and I'm sure that the public on a whole is going to agree that if you have a police man who deliberately follows a dog and shoots and kills a dog, something wrong with you."

Jules Vasquez:
"But hadn't there been diary entries about this dog being a fierce little dog and he tended to give the officers who served duty there, tended to give them trouble?"

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Even if that were the case, at the particular moment when the dog was shot, that was not the case."

Jules Vasquez:
"But did you pay special attention to this case because it's the head of state? Because we know when the dog was shot, Nipsey was shot, not killed and they shot one on Pickstock Street, those officers aren't dismissed."

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Again, you have to look at every situation based on the facts. The circumstances under which they occurred and in all those cases you mentioned just not, the circumstances are different."