The NYPD’s newly revamped Quality of Life team busted a cruel sicko for allegedly duct-taping a dog’s mouth shut and stuffing it in a cage — but the suspect wasn’t off the streets for long as he was cut loose because most animal cruelty crimes aren’t bail-eligible in New York.
Kristopher Fyffe, 38, was arrested Sunday, a day after witnesses watched him wrap a pit bull’s muzzle, legs, and eyes in duct tape outside Queens’ Gwen Ilfill Park in an apparent plan to dump the animal and leave it for dead, a criminal complaint against him shows.
Witnesses began filming — with horrifying footage showing a man in a black tank top push the helpless dog onto its side to finish binding its legs — and called 9-11 as they watched in horror.
They then confronted Fyffe, who allegedly pulled out a knife and threatened them before taking off with the dog in a grey Honda minivan, documents show.
The Brooklyn man was pulled over by a the Quality of Life team the next day, and officers found the poor dog in a kennel in the back — along with four other pit bulls caged in horrific conditions.
The dogs’ kennels were “extremely unsanitary,” the criminal complaint reads, and were “covered in feces and urine, urine in the water bowls,” and had “a lack of clean water supply and food.”
When officers questioned Fyffe he allegedly told them if they turned their bodycam’s off he’d tell them “the truth.”
“There is no case here,” he allegedly said. “They are going to create a case because of a Karen and then they are going to kill my dogs.”
The cops weren’t buying it though. After observing the footage and the condition of the kennels in the van — a van which allegedly had another vehicle’s plates — Fyffe was arrested and charged with torturing and injuring animals, menacing in the second degree and other charges.
But since most animal cruelty crimes are not bail eligible in New York, Fyffe was let go after he was arraigned.
“This defendant gratuitously inflicted harm on a defenseless dog by wrapping the animal’s nose, eyes and legs in duct tape,” Queens County District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a statement.
“No animal should ever be treated this way,” she added.
The dogs were all seized by police, and the ASPCA was notified of their condition.
Fyffe faces up to two years in prison if convicted.
He is just the latest defendant to be cut loose after being accused of alarming animal abuse.
On Tuesday, 53-year-old John Lettieri was arrested for allegedly gunning down a Long Island family’s cat — Coco — as he drove through a Mastic Beach neighborhood in another caught-on-camera crime.
Coco survived, but was left paralyzed.
Lettieri, meanwhile, was let go after he was arraigned.
“If an individual is capable of doing this to another living creature, in this case a cat, there’s no telling what they can do — we would allege they would be capable of just about anything,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said of Lettieri’s release.
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