Animal vigilantes in Miami-Dade
I have been following several animal-cruelty cases investigated by the vigilante-style Animal Recovery Mission.
Each judge has ruled differently, and each defendant has received different sentences.
What is common to all the cases is that this nonprofit organization uses the same tactics in getting its evidence to the state attorney: illegal videos and audio surveillance, sometimes bordering on entrapment.
It is certainly fine for ARM to help law enforcement as long as its activities are within the law.
However, allowing it to “fill the vacuum” as Fred Grimm suggests in his July 17 column is certainly not OK.
Are the residents of this county going to be allowed to “fill the vacuum,” let’s say, in enforcing the ordinance about efficiencies in one-family structures? How about traffic infractions? If we all became vigilantes, what would be the result?
If law enforcement agencies are, in fact, negligent, let’s find a solution to it, not create lawlessness.
Marilu Galvez,
Kendall
This story was originally published July 20, 2016 at 11:29 PM with the headline "Animal vigilantes in Miami-Dade."