EL PASO, Texas -- For the first time since KFOX has been reporting about the animal cruelty cases, a Fort Bliss official has addressed the issues on camera.

Fort Bliss Garrison Commander, Col. Ed Manning, addressed the open warrant against Dwayne Sumter, the soldier who allegedly left his pit bull in his garage to die.

Lil' Pitgirl was allegedly left alone in a garage with no food or water for approximately 30 days before she died. Her owners, Dwayne and Tnelda Sumter, have open warrants on animal cruelty charges. Manning was asked what the post is doing to help serve the warrant.

"That is a civilian warrant. You would have to ask the El Paso authorities and the district attorney to see what they would do with that," said Manning.

The animal cruelty incident happened in Feb. 2008, by that time the Sumter's had moved to Fort Hood in Central Texas.

KFOX called Fort Hood officials who said Dwayne Sumter was deployed to Iraq and arrived there last week. He's with the 20th Support Command which deployed out of Maryland. Now, a commander's inquiry is being conducted. That got started last week, even though the incident happened more than a year ago.

"When I became aware that he had a warrant, I made sure that the current chain of command of this soldier knew what's going on," said Manning. "When was that? Last Week?" asked a KFOX reporter. "At some point, that's right," he replied.

Only after KFOX began reporting on the story two weeks ago did Army officials begin to take action.

"The 20th Support Command was just made aware of that incident shortly after the story came out in late March," said Bruce Zielsdorf, the deputy director for public affairs at Fort Hood.