Reason #84 why the animal shelter system in this country is broken: The people given enforcement powers regarding animal cruelty are in some cases committing cruelty themselves. And when they get caught, the good ol’ boy network minimizes the crimes and does its best to sweep the mess under the rug. In the case of Michael Edwards, the Crowley, LA shelter employee accused of killing and dumping dogs outside the city, the mayor says:
“Horrific, from the stand point of a former employee, a gentleman that was terminated Tuesday afternoon and then went on a little bit of a tear,” said Crowley Mayor Greg Jones.
The “gentleman” who “went on a little bit of a tear” allegedly broke into the shelter after being fired in order to kill and mutilate more dogs.
Mr. Edwards had been working at the shelter since March and apparently had some sort of pets-check-in-but-they-don’t-check-out type scheme going:
Crowley Police Chief K.P. Gibson said they believe roughly a dozen more dogs were killed at the hands of Edwards and disposed of outside of the city of Crowley.
[…]
“One thing is the animals that were micro-chipped and discovered were logged as coming in and not going out, meaning to an owner, being adopted or even being euthanized the proper way,” explained Gibson.
Logged in, not logged out. That sounds pretty clear to me. And raises questions regarding everyone else associated with the pound, including the director who is presumably in charge of overseeing the welfare of the pets who are checked in but not checked out. As in, those animals should be in kennels with someone signing off on cleaning, walking and feeding them every day. But the mayor has an explanation for that too:
“At this time we think he was doctoring some of the paper work,” he answered.
No he wasn’t. Logged in, not logged out. A point that was underscored yesterday when the police chief talked about the discovery of the 3 beheaded dogs:
“The other three animals, all dogs, were listed as being taken into the shelter but had never been listed as returned to own / released, thus the belief that they were still alive prior to the supervisors discovery” stated Chief Gibson. [emphasis mine]
And then there’s the issue of numbers, which KATC explains as:
A point of clarification on this story: Thursday night, two independent sources, close to the animal relief effort, told us more than 200 dogs had been killed. Friday, Chief Gibson and Mayor Jones both said that number it is closer to 15 to 20 dogs killed.
Gee, there’s a discrepancy for ya.
So apparently Mr. Edwards allegedly killed 15 – 20 or maybe over 200 dogs, and they were logged in but never logged out in the shelter records but he was doctoring paperwork so maybe they were logged out but no one else, including the director, knew the guy was a psycho, or maybe he was a gentleman and a pretty swell guy who just got a bit miffed after being fired so chopped off some dogs’ heads for his first act of animal cruelty ever. Got that?
Due to the criminal investigation, the remaining animals need to be adopted out. They will be sold for $25 each at Tractor Supply in Crowley on Sunday, starting at 11 am. If anyone is in the area and needs financial assistance with the adoption fee, please leave a comment. I will do anything I can to help get the pets away from these people.
The shelter is expected to reopen in one week with the same director running the place.
Fug.
I can see how psychos would be attracted to the ‘shelter’ system since the inmates can’t talk.
Ingrid was one of them, no? Although I don’t believe she had mayhem in her kit-bag like this deranged individual.
Gee golly gosh we got tricked because we don’t know how to run our own system.
Note how when an individual commits animal abuse AC proudly reports the number abused and uses it to rebel rouse against the “irresponsible public” ie their excuse to kill more, but when it is one of their own (which is the grand scheme of things it usually is rather than a member of the public due to their access to the pets and they types a kill shelter attracts) they down play the numbers ( from 200 to 15 or 20 in this case) Now if that ain’t signs of a broken system that needs fixin I don’t know what is.
” went on a bit of a tear”. I guess if he were beating school kids on the playground with a baseball bat, we’d call it “a bit of a tear”, would we?
What in this town constitutes “disturbingly violent and abusive rage”? Do you have to set of a nuclear weapon in the place? Or is that just some kind of “emotional outburst” that we should all shake our heads about, too?
How did the director NOT know that dogs were disappearing? And how do they still not know how MANY dogs have disappeared? And was this guy connected to fighting rings?
The reporting on the dogfighting rings was confusing to me too. My interpretation at this point is that he took 5 dead dogs whose bodies were being held as evidence in connection with a dogfighting case, and dumped them somewhere. Now why he would do this, I don’t know. Possibly he was attempting to suppress evidence against the accused b/c… they paid him off to do so? He was in on the dogfighting? He just got his jollies playing with dog carcasses?
The same thing goes on, here, in Florida. Dogs come in, are photographed and posted by volunteers on the volunteer’s website, but when you go in to see them, the answer is, “I don’t know anything about that dog”. Out pound is closed on weekends, forbidding any adoptions, and their weekday hours are unavailable to working people. I have found these mysterious disappearances occur on weekends…kind of like the one mentioned in this article.
Save the photos and FOIA the records on any pets who “disappear”.
OMG…Yeah.. I agree with Shirely.. document every dog .. This crap has got to stop.
@Pet Animal Advocats – GREAT point!
And this “gentleman” broke into the shelter AFTER he had been fired to kill more animals. Yeah, I bet he’s shedding a tear because he got caught for murdering shelter animals and his gig is up, the sick b-stard! (That is the least offensive word I could come up with to type out…many others are swirling around my mind!)
To everyone who is fighting the battle for shelter reform, and exposing these atrocities, thank you! Keep on, keeping on, as we truly are the voice for the voiceless…it is on us.
Shirley, I would like to donate $25 to cover an adoption fee. Please let me know where to send the $$. Thank you.
JESUS What in the world is wrong with this town! It sounds like to me the mayor wants to just sweep the whole thing under the rug. Which in most small towns is exactly what happens. Not enough people to cause enough uproar to do any good. This needs to be investigated by a national news agency.. anyone ever thought about getting in touch with one of them.. i.e. CBS, NBC, ABC, or the best yet.. FOX? I bet if you email them with this information they will jump on it with both feet. Especially if there is corruption in the government of this town. FOX especially loves this kind of story. Hopefully if you can get a major news entity involved, ,the same people will not be allowed to be in that same position at the shelter any longer. They would be forced to put someone with a heart in the position. This is just a suggestion, but I’ve seen it work before! It’s worth a try isn’t it? To save the rest of the animals? I don’t know exactly where you are, but if I were near and had the money, I’d be happy to have one of the remaining animals.. but I’m in a small town in Virginia.. with animal loving people.. I wish you luck in whatever you decide to do about this, but someone MUST do SOMETHING and do it fast! If there is anything I can possibly to do help, please let me know via this email addy. God Bless you for bringing this to light so that everyone can see the horrible way this shelter was run. Godspeed… Katherine “Until one has loved an animal, part of their soul remains unawakened” Kathie
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The shelter director had only been there two months and is the person responsible for getting him fired. It’s too bad she couldn’t have gotten him fired sooner but apparently the mayor who is ultimately responsible resisted firing him. The shelter director is the good guy here!!
Hmmm, sounds like this guy is a PeTAphile.
Some of the animals at this Louisiana shelter can be seen on this page: Crowley Louisiana Animal Shelter – http://www.facebook.com/CrowleyAnimalShelterLouisiana By the way, saw that this Facebook page will be shut down after this weekend. :(
Available for adoption – August 22, 2012 – http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.430371836997217.100838.430207700346964&type=1 Crowley Louisiana Animal Shelter – http://www.facebook.com/CrowleyAnimalShelterLouisiana
Wow! This whole situation is so sad and disturbing. I hope that the remaining animals get adopted, and I also hope that the mayor comes to his sense and that judge throws the book at him. And it doesn’t sound like the director knows what’s going on behind the scenes, so he should be fired too.
I wrote the mayor and the judge, hoping that they either give him harsh penalties, or change their mind, or SOMETHING. Doesn’t hurt to try, right? I think others should too, solidarity in numbers, so here are their e-mail addresses:
-Here is who the judge may be, since I could only find one judge in Crowley. This is the secretaries email address as I couldn’t find his.
Honorable John D. Trahan: Solinger@cox-internet.com
-Here’s for the mayor, Greg Jones: Mayor@crowley-la.com
As we all know, a lot of psychopaths start off with animals, so this is nothing to sneeze at.
Thanks everyone!
Please be sure you understand that the current director had NOTHING to do with these events. In fact, she’d been reporting the missing animals for months, but the Mayor refused to do anything about Edwards. Now that it’s all coming out, Mayor Jones is backpedaling as fast as he can.
Jehnna has done miracles with this shelter, including starting taking pictures & logging in all animals, getting them their shots, having a team from LSU Vet school come out and give them all exams, cleaning things up, and making sure everyone is fed properly. She also opened the shelter up to rescues so they could pull dogs & find homes for them.
So before you go condemning the current director, please talk to Second Chance Paws, and some of the other rescues that work with Jehnna.