Animal Precinct

*Animal Precinct*
Animal Precinct
Narrated by	Michael Madsen
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	60 minutes
Original release
Network	Animal Planet
Release	2001

Animal Precinct is a television program on Animal Planet. It takes place in New York City, home to "eight million people, five million pets, [and] 15 animal cruelty agents with full police powers," as narrator Michael Madsen says during the show's opening credits. As of 2006, HLE now has 20 Agents with full police powers for the entire city.

Animal Precinct is a type of reality show that follows the animal cruelty agents from the Humane Law Enforcement department of the ASPCA as they advocate for animals, sometimes removing them from dangerous situations and pursuing arrests of those cruel to animals. It was the first show created by Animal Planet as part of an "umbrella rotation" of shows known collectively as "Animal Planet Heroes", and its success led to the development of similar shows set in Detroit, Michigan (Animal Cops Detroit), Houston, Texas (Animal Cops Houston), Miami, Florida (Miami Animal Police), San Francisco, California (Animal Cops San Francisco), and Phoenix, Arizona (Animal Planet Heroes: Phoenix).

The show is filmed locally by crews from Anglia Television, edited in the UK and shown on Discovery Channel networks worldwide.

Show history

The show debuted in 2001, with 10 animal cruelty agents. At first it was a half-hour show; later it was extended to a full hour.

Season one

Season one was sixteen episodes long. The television pilot was quite different from subsequent episodes, as it focused on Special Investigator Annemarie Lucas, at times away from her work, for example at her police locker, where she discussed briefly how she felt about carrying a gun.

"Animal Precinct at Ground Zero"

On October 12, 2001, from 9 to 10PM Eastern Time, Animal Planet aired a special focused on the work to rescue the many animals that were affected by the fall of the World Trade Center towers on September 11.

Subsequent seasons

Animal Precinct has run for five seasons so far. Season two was 17 episodes long, season three was 15 episodes long, and season four was 9 episodes long, plus one special that showed the happy endings of many rescued animals from previous seasons. The fifth season began airing in 2006.

Beginning with season four, five new investigators joined the HLE team, resulting in a change in the opening credits from "10 Animal Cruelty Agents" to "15 Animal Cruelty Agents".

Cast, past and present

The ASPCA Humane Law Enforcement (HLE) officers can be classified as Special Agent or Special Investigator. Many HLE officers are identified by name on-camera; however, some are not, instead spoken of only by initial (most notably "Special Agent M" and "Special Agent Q") with their faces blurred when on-camera as a way to protect their identities so that they can do undercover work for the ASPCA.

Joe Pentangelo
Kristi Adams
John De La Torre
Diane DiGiacomo
Adam Gankiewicz
Bob Clark
Paul Lai
Annemarie Lucas
Mark MacDonald
Richard Raheb
Peter Rivas
Paul Romano
Henry Ruiz
Richard Ryan
Tina Salaks
Joann Sandano
Timothy Stack
Michael Tietje (retired in 2006)

Special Agent Henry Ruiz was known as "Special Agent H" during the show's early seasons but revealed his true identity in 2005 when he ceased performing undercover work. Ruiz's "unmasking" was the subject of a series of special episodes of Animal Precinct, in which footage of Ruiz's past rescues was shown for the first time without the facial blurring, as well as footage from his last major undercover operation for the ASPCA (reconnaissance and surveillance of an area holding roosters bred for cock fighting) with Ruiz demonstrating and explaining his undercover techniques on-camera. However, completed episodes filmed while Ruiz was still "Special Agent H" still have his face blurred whenever he appears on-screen.

External links