Saving lives is one of the duties of police officers. Indeed, such a sense of mission motivates police officers to come to the aid of not only people, but animals as well!

At 1pm on June 18 this year, Ah Hang, police officer of Task Force Sub-unit of the Enforcement and Control Division, Traffic Hong Kong Island, was riding a motorcycle along a section of Canal Road East near Yiu Wa Street in Causeway Bay, when he spotted a seven-seater car stopping at the junction of the roads. He then went over to investigate, and it turned out that some citizens had urgently blocked the car when they noticed a newborn kitten getting under it. Therefore, Ah Hang grovelled to take a look, and found that the kitten was actually hiding by the left rear wheel of the car. At this moment, Ah Hang’s colleague “Stanley” arrived at the scene to render support.

Since they could not crawl into the tiny space underneath the car to rescue the kitten, they had to co-operate in this mission. Grovelling on the right of the car, Ah Hang shone a torch at all possible locations of the kitten. Simultaneously, “Stanley” grovelled on the left of the car and extended his hand to try to feel the kitten underneath it by following Ah Hang’s instructions. Petrified, the kitten bit on and scratched the hand of “Stanley”. However, after a 15-minute “hide-and-seek”, the kitten was eventually rescued.

“Stanley” said, “There was a restaurant around the street corner. Many citizens having lunch inside were witnessing this special mission of ours. The moment we saved the kitten, the crowd cheered and gave us thumbs-up, and some helpful passers-by even fetched us a cardboard box to hold the kitten temporarily. Such harmonious scenes of police officers and citizens helping each other out really warmed our hearts.”

Meanwhile, a rather unique case of animal rescue took place on November 16 last year. Ah Chi, who was posted to Airport District, dined out with her family on her day-off. At around 9pm, she walked past an exit of the Sham Shui Po MTR station, where she spotted an off-leash white Bichon Frise haphazardly following whoever it saw on the street. Therefore, Ah Chi raised her voice to ask if its owner was around, but no one responded. For fear that the dog would dash across the road and injure itself, Ah Chi tailed the dog and kept an eye on it.

Ah Chi ended up following the dog all the way to the Cheung Sha Wan Government Offices. Seeing the dog’s brushes with danger when it crossed the road, Ah Chi decisively invited pedestrians to intercept the dog, while she ripped off a plastic cordon line used on the roadside and fashioned it into a makeshift dog leash, to help take care of the dog until staff members from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) arrived to take it away.

She later learnt that given the dog’s loud bark, its owner had been tying its mouth shut using elastic bands for a long period, in order to stop it from barking. Afterwards, the owner even lost the dog. Upon investigation, the Police prosecuted the dog owner for animal abuse.

Coincidentally, both “Stanley” and Ah Chi felt they had formed a serendipitous bond with the animals they rescued, but for different reasons, they could not adopt them in the end. However, after carrying out such animal rescue missions, they hope everyone will respect animal rights even more. Any member of the public who wishes to raise pets can first consider applying to adopt animals via non-profit organisations such as SPCA.