(Warning: This is disturbing material.)
Somehow, SOMEHOW, the animal cruelty case against Mary Jo Frazier, the former head of Boulder City AC in Nevada from 1996 – 2015, is even grosser than previously reported.
An ACO whistleblower had informed Frazier’s boss, former Police Chief Bill Conger, of wrongdoing at the pound a full year before any action was taken:
[ACO Ann] Inabnitt testified that Conger told her, “Well kid these things take time to investigate.”
“He just kind of patted me on the head and said he’d look into it,” she told the grand jury. “And I had to believe him at that point that he was looking into some of the things I was telling him.”
He wasn’t. Apparently the allegations made by the ACO didn’t interest Conger. Among them was Frazier’s killing of her own pet, Oscar.
ACO Inabnitt testified to the grand jury that Oscar, a dachshund who had been owned by Frazier and her now ex-husband, had been taken by Frazier and was reportedly peeing on Frazier’s carpet. ACO Inabnitt suggested to Frazier that she give the dog back to “his dad” since he was most likely missing his person and the inappropriate peeing behavior was a result:
But Frazier cursed at the mention of her ex and brought Oscar to a bank of cages at the back of the shelter. She stuffed him inside a cage and went to the safe where she kept the shelter’s drugs, Inabnitt testified. Then Frazier killed him in a manner against protocol, Inabnitt testified. Inabnitt said she wanted to hold Oscar as he died to comfort him, but Frazier would not allow it.
Frazier stuck him with the drug in his hind leg and went out for a smoke. Inabnitt stared in shock as the dog screamed, banging its head against his cage.Frazier came back and stuck a syringe directly into unconscious Oscar’s heart, Inabnitt testified. Frazier let the syringe sit there, moving with the dying dog’s fading heartbeat.
Holy Monkey Fighting Snakes. I do not even want to guess at what “manner against protocol” refers to.
Inabnitt told the grand jury that Frazier ordered that there be no paperwork on Oscar’s killing. When asked about the drug log, Frazier reportedly said she’d simply falsify it.
Which leads to the next horrible thing:
Boulder City police officers told a grand jury the city’s former police chief, who quit amid the shelter scandal, didn’t want the case against his former employee made public.
Former Police Chief Bill Conger ordered Detective David Olson not to investigate why the city’s shelter was missing cash and missing narcotics, Olson testified.
Conger ordered that evidence taken out of the investigation paperwork, he said.
That’s some Grade A enabling there.
If Frazier was stealing cash from the shelter, that makes her a thief. But if she was responsible for the missing narcotics, who the eff knows what might have been going on? Was she torturing and killing other animals the way she did Oscar and trying to cover her tracks? How many? I can only imagine everyone in Boulder City who ever lost a pet during Frazier’s reign is now tormented by nightmares.
Mona Angelone is one of many local residents who blame Frazier for the needless killings of their pets. Ms. Angelone says that in 2013, Frazier chased her dog through the desert and shot at him more than a dozen times before finally killing him. She says her other dog was strung up in a chokepole by Frazier, hanged over her back fence until he was dead, then dragged across her driveway in front of her and her daughter.
Some owners are considering civil litigation against Frazier.
Now for your Moment of Reassurance:
The Boulder City community has taken steps to make sure this level of abuse by animal control never happens again.
“The shelter was closed for a few days, so the animal control officers could go on to training regarding animal cruelty,” said Jean Slader, who served as head of animal control prior to Frazier.
Gosh, if only someone had thought of this sooner. But you know kid, these things take time. It’s not like anyone who works at a shelter WANTS to kill animals.
(Thanks Clarice for the links.)