NORTH MIAMI, Fla. – A North Miami man is facing an animal cruelty charge after the city’s police department said he was caught “stomping on a white kitten and trying to wedge the cat into a metal drainage grate.”
Police said the incident happened on April 1, but suspect Watner Noel Janvier took off from police during two separate attempts to arrest him. An arrest report states they found him on Wednesday.
The report states that a witness took video of the attack near Northwest 136th Street and Sixth Avenue and when he “yelled” at Janvier, the 20-year-old “grabbed the kitten and fled.”
That video was later posted to social media outlet Only in Dade.
“The community saw something and it said something, that’s number one,” Maj. Kessler Brooks, a North Miami Police Department spokesperson, said Thursday. “Number two is just a heinous act that was committed against a defenseless animal.”
After giving the kitten to a woman, he then fled the responding officers who tried to apprehend him, police said.
Two days later, Janvier’s family called North Miami police to tell them that he was home, the report states. Police said he successfully took off again.
“He kept on fleeing,” Brooks said. “And our detectives were diligent, nonstop, going back out. He made himself elusive. We were back out there to get him.”
Authorities said they found Janvier on Wednesday at his home near the crime scene. He “denied trying to kill or discard the kitten and stated what the video shows was not true,” the report states.
The kitten is believed to have died.
“We did not find the remains of that animal, of the kitten, but another independent witness told us that, in fact, it had died,” Brooks said. “That even more, tugged at the heartstrings of everyone who knew this, including our officers, and we wanted to bring this individual to justice.
“That’s why we went out there and continued on. It’s been a month, and we did not let it go.”
Police arrested Janvier on charges of animal cruelty with intent to injure or kill and resisting arrest.
Body camera video obtained exclusively by Local 10 News shows officers taking him into custody.
As of Thursday, he was no longer listed in Miami-Dade jail records.