The dogs ran out of the forest. Nadezhda picked up two of her dogs, but did not have time for the third - it got scared and rushed forward. The woman recalls: the hunters shouted that they would shoot everyone and demanded that she be removed immediately. Nadezhda was literally three or four meters away from her dog when the hunter shot the animal. The second hunter was holding her and her neighbor at gunpoint at that moment.
Nadezhda called the police dispatch center. The Ministry of Internal Affairs arrived, discussed what happened in words and did not accept a statement from her. The next day, she says, the district police officer called her and said that they did not want to accept the case.
Then Nadezhda called the police via 112. “An investigative team arrived, they described everything, took witness statements. Only a week later the lawyer was allowed to familiarize himself with the case materials; before that, our calls were not answered. As I understand it, in this way they are trying to hush up the matter. I don’t know if any checks are being carried out or not.”
On October 27, Nadezhda filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office about the inaction of the police. In mid-November, the police requested additional documents on the dog, including an examination of the animal’s value. On November 23, the police issued a decision not to initiate criminal proceedings. While Nadezhda does not know why the case was refused, she intends to continue to seek justice.
“Such cases” sent a request to the Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Moscow Region with a request to comment on the information.
Nobody's property
Due to the fact that the stray animal does not belong to anyone, activists are not recognized as victims in a criminal case and they do not have access to the case materials.
“Any applicant, of course, can demand the initiation of a criminal case. But he will be the applicant, and not the injured party, since he was not the owner of the animal,” lawyer Margarita Gavrilova explains the difference. “Therefore, we cannot appeal or challenge the actions or inactions of the police.”
Anastasia Apukhtina-Ageichkina adds: a person can be recognized as a victim if a crime occurred before his eyes.
“The law aims to provide a pleasant and safe environment for people. Witnessing cruelty to an animal results in an unsatisfactory and unsafe environment, she argues. — Whether or not to recognize a person as a victim depends on what practice has been developed in a particular department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They act according to a well-established pattern, and new realities are introduced very slowly.”
Animal rights activists emphasize that contacting the police is NOT useless. The more people write statements to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, contact the prosecutor's office, talk about cases of violence against animals on social networks and the media, the better the law will work. The police will learn how to work with this article, and judicial practice will be formed.
“A person who turns to the police must be ready to go through this path to the end. But this must be done, because we have no other way and the situation will not change. This lasts forever, because the system will not change itself,” emphasizes Anastasia Apukhtina-Ageichkina.
Dogs who lived in the village of LyubimovkaPhoto: Olga Efremova
St. Petersburg resident Olga Efremova moved to the village of Lyubimovka near Sevastopol in April. There were stray dogs in the village: an adult bitch and her three puppies.
“The dog was sterilized in May. The animals were very kind, they came up and played with my children, and never fought with anyone,” Olga recalls. “In November, I realized that the dogs had disappeared somewhere, and I started looking for them. A neighbor said she heard shots on the night of November 8-9. Others reported seeing a pool of blood and hearing dogs yelping on November 11. So I realized that these were our dogs. On November 19, I found three of them shot and thrown into a field.”
Olga called the police: “The district police officer immediately said that it would be better if [the criminal] buried them. Then he began to say, you know, no one really considers such cases.”
The statement was nevertheless accepted, although they refused to question witnesses. Then Efremova called the prosecutor's office and called 102 - an investigative team arrived and sent the bodies of the dogs for examination to Krasnodar. After this, the district police officer and the investigator interviewed witnesses.
On November 22, the investigation department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Nakhimovsky district opened a criminal case under Part 1 of Article 245 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Police are now identifying who was involved in the death of the animals.
Arbitrage practice
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In judicial practice, cases of cruel treatment are not frequent due to the lack of evidence in the case. But still, such examples are available in the book of meetings; most of the examples are found in Part 1, where the punishment is not too severe.
Let's give an example from part 2: while visiting, citizen Chernov killed the cat of the owner of the house, citizen Yuryev, because the cat stole a piece of sausage from the table. At the time of the massacre of the cat, Yuryev’s young son, who was 8 years old at the time of the crime, was present in the room.
The qualification of the case under Part 2 was based on:
- Based on the fact that there was a child in the house.
- The fact that the crime was committed out of hooligan motives.
The presence of a minor child automatically transfers the case to part 2, so citizen Chernov was sentenced to compulsory labor for a period of 1 year.
How to report animal cruelty?
The Animal Welfare Association has prepared a roadmap on what to do if you hear about animal cruelty. It is better for witnesses to the crime to contact the police directly.
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The application must indicate:
- the date and time when you witnessed cruelty to an animal;
- the main actions that you saw. For example, someone hit a dog, causing the animal to be injured. If you took the animal to a veterinary clinic, ask the doctors for a statement describing the nature of the injury;
- In the last paragraph of the application, write down that you are asking for an investigation to be conducted and to be reported to you. Here is an example of the wording:
“I ask you to check the stated facts, if they are confirmed, bring the perpetrators to justice and notify me of the decision in accordance with the deadlines established by law.” The police are required to respond within a month.
- If your cat or dog is attacked, then this can also be classified as an attack on private property. Then it is better to attach documents to the application that the animal really belongs to you.
- If several people saw the crime, write a statement from a group of people.
- If you were threatened or even hit when you tried to protect an animal, be sure to write this down in the statement - these are other articles of the Criminal Code.
The investigation is not a quick process, and you need to be prepared for this, animal rights activists emphasize. If the police do not respond, then experts advise writing a complaint to the prosecutor’s office: first at the crime scene, and if there is no answer there, then to a higher authority.
Where to go if a crime is discovered?
Where can citizens complain?
A witness to violence against an animal can file a complaint at the nearest police station.
The officer on duty is obliged to accept the application and issue the witness a special coupon indicating the date of acceptance of the application, details of the department and data of the employee who accepted it.
At the same time, the person submitting the application must be warned about the sanctions imposed for knowingly false information and denunciation (Article 306 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The submitted application is reviewed within 3-10 working days.
After this, the applicant is given an official response, which indicates information about the institution of a criminal case, the transfer of materials to the relevant subordinate units, or the reasons for refusing to initiate a case.
Can you sue for insult? Find out the answer right now.
“60 percent of criminals show specific cruelty to animals”
Experts interviewed by Such Cases are confident that if cases of cruelty to animals are investigated, the number of such crimes will decrease. And, according to some studies, cruelty to animals may in the future manifest itself as aggression towards people. Many experts are confident that if cases of aggression towards animals are prevented, society will become more humane.
Psychiatrist and psychotherapist from St. Petersburg Elena Antonova believes that cruelty to an animal indicates that a person is not able to control his emotions. She is sure that aggression can have several reasons: personal trauma, when a person was bitten by an animal or a relative was harmed, or a person shifts aggression from a person to an animal.
“A person can take out aggression on an animal because it cannot show resistance like another person. It may also be less punishable than aggression towards a person. If a person is prone to aggression, due to a number of factors, it can be manifested anywhere, anytime and in relation to any subject,” Antonova emphasized.
X-ray of a surviving dog from the village of Lyubimovka, which shows a fraction Photo: Olga Efremova
Experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Scotland Yard list animal abuse as one of five key indicators of the likelihood of future crime. Their research confirmed that 86 percent of teenagers who commit serious crimes have previously shown cruelty to animals.
Aggression towards animals in childhood and older ages can also arise due to an act of violence experienced. Thus, according to a study by Stephen R. Kellert of Yale University, which was conducted in the format of interviews with 152 criminals and non-criminals, violence towards animals in childhood may correlate with aggressive criminal behavior in adults.
The scientist studied three categories of people: prisoners in the federal prisons of Leavenworth and Danbury and non-convicts. Leavenworth houses aggressive convicts who have committed the most violent crimes. The majority—about 60 percent—reported at least one instance of animal cruelty during childhood, according to the study. 25 percent of aggressive prisoners recalled five or more incidents of violence. Almost all of the criminals studied were abused in one way or another as children. There were no such cases among those who were not convicted.
Comment on the article
Usually, the article for cruelty to animals requires clear provision of evidence in the case, since this is the only way to punish the culprit. To do this, the beating of the animal must be recorded, and it is imperative that the pet was either injured or died due to the recent actions of the defendant.
In addition, a motive is needed, which is determined by voting between the jurors; if it is a jury trial by which the crime occurred, it can be:
- hooligan;
- selfish.
A hooligan motive is established if the reprisal against an animal, for example a dog or cat, occurred for the purpose of personal satisfaction or simply from hooligan thoughts, for example, the culprit thought that the pet had bad behavior.
At the same time, the hooligan motive can be applied in a situation where the bullying was against someone else’s pet. In this case, the culprit will still be punished under Art. 167. The court will determine the final measure of responsibility based on the totality of the crimes charged.
If there was a mercenary motive, when an animal was abused or killed in order to obtain money, then the punishment under the article becomes more severe and changes to part two. In addition, if the animal is someone else’s property, then the culprit can also be judged according to Art. 167.
What is needed to reduce cruelty to animals?
Director of the Vita Foundation Irina Novozhilova says that the organization has been operating for 27 years and during this time the situation with cruelty to animals and the investigation of such crimes has not changed. The social activist is sure that one of the main reasons for this stagnation is the ineffective system for dealing with stray animals in Russia.
In Russia, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources, there are 501 shelters. However, regional ministries say that 785 more shelters are needed to house all the stray animals. The most prepared to accommodate homeless animals are Moscow - 13 thousand places - and the Moscow region - 9 thousand places.
At the same time, animal rights activists from the Animal Welfare Association have calculated that one shelter can accommodate a maximum of 150-250 dogs. It turns out that even if 785 more shelters are built in the regions, this will not help accommodate all homeless animals. At least half of them will remain on the street, animal rights activists are sure.
“Stray animals appear as a problem in those countries where the state does not take control over the breeding of companion animals - dogs and cats,” says Irina Novozhilova. — The state should control two types of breeders: those who reproduce for the sake of business - this is the class of breeders - and those who reproduce out of thoughtlessness - these are ordinary citizens who simply do not sterilize their animals and get offspring. These two categories must be very tightly controlled. If we turn off the breeding tap in the country, conditions will be created that will make animals disappear from the streets in a few years.”
Legal assistance to pet owners
The law on this issue is far from perfect, which leaves some citizens unpunished. But there is always the opportunity to apply other articles to the culprit, to hold him accountable for violation of order, an attempt on a person’s property, violation of etiquette standards and to recover moral damages. In order to prevent lynching of the flayer, and to bring him to a well-deserved punishment, it is better to seek help from experienced lawyers. The range of services to protect the interests of citizens, their moral or material values includes:
- free consultation by phone or online chat;
- preparation of documents and claims;
- support of procedural actions, investigations and involvement of additional specialists if circumstances so require;
- assistance in collecting evidence;
- appealing decisions, etc.
Experienced lawyers will present arguments not only under Art. 45 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but also under Art. 167 and art. 213 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which in any situation threatens serious punishment for the culprit.
