“Punching, whipping, choking, dragging, slamming, and forcibly throwing a defenseless dog is REPREHENSIBLE!” wrote the 19th Precinct in a March 27 post on X (formerly Twitter).
The post references Tuesday’s arrest of 31-year-old Rigoberto Chavez.
The Upper East Side resident was caught on surveillance cameras abusing a dog in the elevator of his building, located at 440 East 62nd Street between York Avenue and the FDR Drive (a co-op also known as the Park Sutton), just before 1 a.m. on Saturday, March 16.
A neighbor tipped off the police who then saw the “torture recorded on surveillance” and arrested Chavez on charges of “Torture/Injure Animal.”
In other news about people being arrested on Tuesday on the Upper East Side, a 47-year-old homeless man named Michael Brooks was booked for kicking in the front door of Barnes & Noble at about 5:45 a.m. The alarm went off which alerted police who then arrived to find the “career felon” removing merchandise. Brooks, who was “also wanted on a bench warrant for a previous burglary,” according to the 19th Precinct, was arrested on charges of Burglary and Criminal Possession of Stolen Property.
