SOYI­NI GREY

Se­nior Re­porter

soyi­ni.grey@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing a so­cial me­dia video that pur­port­ed­ly shows a three-year-old end­ing the life of a pup­py. Yes­ter­day, the TTPS said it had tak­en steps to iden­ti­fy where the video was tak­en and con­tact the par­ents or guardians of the tod­dler.

Guardian Me­dia has on­ly seen screen­shots of the video on Face­book, which was not up­loaded to the site be­cause it would vi­o­late the com­mu­ni­ty guide­lines that pro­hib­it cru­el­ty to an­i­mals. But the pic­tures ap­peared to show the tod­dler alone with the an­i­mal and an adult sur­fac­ing to re­move the pup­py af­ter it died.

West­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice are said to be work­ing with the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit and the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty to lo­cate the child and fam­i­ly.

Trinidad and To­ba­go has laws that ad­dress cru­el­ty to an­i­mals. Sec­tion 79 of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, Chap­ter 11:02, says jail time and/or a fine can be ap­plied for the of­fence. How­ev­er, a child un­der the age of eight can­not be charged with a crime, ac­cord­ing to the le­gal doc­trine Doli In­ca­pax, Latin for “in­ca­pable of wrong.”

The child’s par­ents or guardians, how­ev­er, could be found neg­li­gent, which could re­sult in le­gal cul­pa­bil­i­ty.

While the po­lice ser­vice is try­ing to iden­ti­fy the par­ties in­volved so that a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion can be con­duct­ed, they ad­vise coun­selling is the like­ly re­sult.

The pub­lic is al­so warned against shar­ing the video, as it could put them at risk of a crim­i­nal charge be­cause they shared con­tent that could be il­le­gal and in­volve a mi­nor.

The ex­ist­ing Face­book posts have gen­er­at­ed a lot of in­ter­est, with many rush­ing to spec­u­late as to the rea­sons for the tod­dler’s be­hav­iour.

How­ev­er, clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gists are cau­tion­ing against a rush to judge­ment.

Clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Van­dana Siew Sankar-Ali told Guardian Me­dia a child can­not be di­ag­nosed as ei­ther a psy­chopath or a so­ciopath.

“Those are clin­i­cal di­ag­noses that are giv­en in adult­hood so that is not some­thing you can di­ag­nose. There are be­hav­iours of con­cern that may be at­tached to a clin­i­cal di­ag­no­sis or con­duct dis­or­der, or along the lines of im­pulse con­trol dis­or­ders, but even so those are for­mal clin­i­cal di­ag­no­sis that have to be made by a pro­fes­sion­al and we would re­al­ly en­cour­age per­sons to de­sist from at­tach­ing la­bels that are quite heavy bur­dens for chil­dren to car­ry.”

It is a cau­tion echoed by Vic­to­ria Siew­nar­ine-Gee­lals­ingh, clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist and pres­i­dent-elect of the Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion of Psy­chol­o­gists (TTAP). She said while it may be tempt­ing to make as­sump­tions about the sit­u­a­tion as pre­sent­ed, she warned there are fac­tors at play that can on­ly be un­cov­ered through ther­a­py or a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

She has in­stead called for com­pas­sion.

“We can­not un­der­stand some­one else’s per­spec­tive and their mo­tive and their in­ten­tion for do­ing some­thing. I cer­tain­ly would not think that we’re a so­ci­ety who wants to crash down on a tod­dler for hav­ing made a mis­take,” Siew­nar­ine-Gee­lals­ingh said.

She al­so re­mind­ed it is a child who as a re­sult of their age is yet to de­vel­op a ca­pac­i­ty for ab­stract think­ing, which is the abil­i­ty to un­der­stand con­cepts not at­tached to con­crete ex­pe­ri­ences, things, peo­ple or sit­u­a­tions.

Both ther­a­pists agreed that treat­ment is nec­es­sary. Siew­nar­ine-Gee­lals­ingh said the child and his fam­i­ly would be best served if they are placed un­der the care of a de­vel­op­men­tal psy­chol­o­gist who is trained to help some­one man­age the changes as­so­ci­at­ed with many stages of life.