BUILDING A STABLE ENVIRONMENT SINCE 2001 ®

In a criminal proceeding, evidence that the State will use to prosecute the offender is gathered mainly during investigation of the crime.  In order to obtain that evidence in an animal cruelty case, the animal control officer must have obtained a valid search warrant. 

Under Washington law, an animal control officer can authorize a veterinarian to examine an animal to determine whether the level of neglect or abuse is sufficient for the animal to be removed from the property.  In order to actually remove the animal, a warrant must be obtained, and law enforcement officer must be present. 

Once the notice is posted and the animals are removed, several wheels are set in motion:

1. the animal control has to file a criminal case within 14 business days or the owner may petition the court for return of the animals, at the agency’s expense
   

2. the animal control agency has the right to find an adopter or euthanize the animals after 15 business days unless the owner petitions for their immediate return  (subject to court-imposed conditions)
   

3. the owner may post a bond or security in an amount sufficient to provide for the animal’s care for a minimum of 30 days.  This bond may be renewed many times until the case is completed.
   

Life is simple when the owner relinquishes ownership right away, whether or not a civil or criminal case is filed.  The agency pays the shelter for board and care for anywhere from 14 to 30 days, and then the shelter decides on whether the animal is adoptable or not.   But the Waller Road case was anything but simple. 

LUCKY 13

“What, exactly, am I supposed to be squinting at?”

“Ahh, you know, it’s like pornography.  You’ll know it when you see it.”

                -- Brennan and Booth in Bones pilot

Monday, January 7, 2008

Jenny Edwards dressed warmly that morning.  The temperature gage read 37o and she wasn’t looking forward to tromping around in the icy paddocks at 96th and Waller.  She had never been to the Gale property before, but had heard a lot about it during the past few weeks. 

At 10:28 AM Edwards and Dr. Heather Stewart, and and two animal control officers arrived at the property, armed with a search warrant to inspect the property and outbuildings, as well as any remaining horses. 

The first task was to sketch the property and observe which horses were being kept together.  Edwards began making notes.  “There are several small paddocks marked off by bits of electric tape or baling twine.  Along one edge of the property is a white or cream-colored stallion standing under a makeshift shelter.  It’s very small and there’s about one foot accumulation of feces that has hardened and causes the horse’s head to touch the ‘roof’ of the shelter.  Three other stallions or geldings are in separate paddocks, and another separate paddock for what appears to be a yearling.  Not far from the light-colored stallion is a slightly larger paddock with a black mare in poor condition.  The remains of a tarp shelter are in this paddock, but the poles are bent and the tarp covering is torn and wind-blown.  At the back edge of the property, there is one paddock with two white mares, and another larger paddock with six horses kept together.  Overall, the property conditions are poor.  There’s a wooden box with an open top in the paddock with the six horses that has been chewed on repeatedly.   There are a couple of plastic feeding bowls with an unknown substance in them outside reach of any of the horses.  Although there are a couple water hoses lying about, only one paddock has any water container available.  Officer Davidson commented that the water level was the same as when he was here a few days earlier.”

Edwards snapped photos as she walked. Officer Davidson looked in the small garage and found some hay lying on top of a car that was parked there.  Dr. Stewart crept under the electrical tape by one of the stallions.  It was a habit to be careful, since clearly there was no power to the tape.  But there were other dangers in the bits and pieces of wood with nails and other protruding objects lying about.  The stallion allowed Dr. Stewart to approach, but the mud sucked at her boots and made it impossible to move freely. 

Once the decision was made to impound the horses, a sheriff’s deputy was called and Edwards alerted the team at Hope For Horses that multiple trailers and handlers would be needed.  Managing the movement of that many horses takes a lot of coordination.  You never know how a horse, especially a stallion, will react to a strange handler.  And you never have any idea what kind of handling a horse has had.  It was quite possible that some of these horses had been born on the property and never seen a trailer, let alone gotten into one. 

The appearance of animal control vehicles and squad cars inevitably draws a crowd of onlookers, as well as the news media, and this time was no exception.  A few people who showed up had been at the meeting at animal control the week before, but there were some new people as well.  One of them was a man wearing a long overcoat and a little fedora.  He carried a notepad and appeared to be some kind of reporter.  After a while, he approached Edwards and said he was interested in becoming a foster for Hope For Horses.  His name was George Wearn, and when asked if he was a reporter, he said No, he was a private citizen who had been feeding the horses for a while.   He asked a few questions about how Hope For Horses worked and then asked whether we were government funded.  At first Edwards thought he as asking whether we received any government grants, and the answer to that was No.  But when it became clear that he was instead asking whether we would be compensated for boarding the horses that would be leaving the Waller Road property, the answer was Yes.  And for some reason, that made George mad.  He said, “So you’re just in this to make a profit.” 

Now anyone who does this work, knows that’s a funny idea.  And both Edwards and Dr. Stewart, who was now listening in on the conversation, couldn’t help but laugh.  The kind of work that we, or any nonprofit does, is rarely “profitable.”  And there’s an old joke that the best way to make a small fortune in the horse business, is to start with a large one.

Around 3:00 PM the first of four trailers arrived.  Around 6:00 Donna Gale arrived and was served with the second notice to post a cruelty bond, and by 7:45, all thirteen horses had been transported to a Hope For Horses triage location about ninety miles from their original location.   A local reporter for King 5 news was allowed to come to the barn and film some of the horses on the condition that the location not be named.  This is a standard security precaution that Hope For Horses takes on every case. 

Meanwhile, animal control supervisor Lisa Drury was fielding questions about the day’s events from an irate citizen at a county council meeting.  One woman claimed Drury was incompetent and complained that animal control belonged under the sheriff’s department and not the auditor’s office.  Several others complained that it had taken “over six years and two dead horses” before they would respond to the complaints at Waller Road.  This was a gross exaggeration, since no horses had died, and the Gales had only been renting the property for about four years by that time. 

It had been a long and arduous day.  But the animal control officers and supervisor Drury were happy.  All the horses had finally been removed and maybe now animal control could move on to other things. 

Hope For Horses volunteers were happy too.  In three hours a team of about ten people had loaded, transported, and moved 13 horses without incident.  They had been secured in deeply bedded, warm stalls for the night, and each given free choice hay.   The road to healing had begun.

The next day, Diane Ellis filed a request for public records with Pierce County regarding the animal control investigation of horses at 96th and Waller.  The road to nowhere had just begun.

Stay tuned for Chapter 7 . . .

IMPOUND AT WALLER ROAD - CHAPTER 6