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Horrible situation concerning stray animals in Harrisburg, PA
This is horrible. Does anyone have any suggestions on what we can do for these poor animals.
Memo tells Harrisburg police to kill, adopt or dump abandoned or lost dogs
Published: Wednesday, January 04, 2012, 12:30 AM Updated: Wednesday, January 04, 2012, 12:43 PM
By DONALD GILLILAND, The Patriot-NewsThe Patriot-NewsFollow
View full sizeDAN GLEITER, The Patriot-News, 2010The Humane Society of Harrisburg Area Inc. used to get 60 dogs a month from Harrisburg, according to Tom Hickey, a member of the Governor's Dog Law Advisory Board.It?s a bad time to be a dog in the city of Harrisburg.
Slip the leash, get lost or ? worse ? abandoned, and a dog faces summary execution or extraordinary rendition to some remote corner of Dauphin County.
All of it?s beyond the law, according to Tom Hickey, a member of the Governor?s Dog Law Advisory Board.
Hickey said the people of Harrisburg should beware.
?Keep your dogs inside ? don?t risk them getting lost,? Hickey said. ?If it gets lost, you?re going to find out real quickly how bad this is.?
Pat Wadsworth learned firsthand on New Year?s Eve.
The 65-year-old city resident saw a dog wandering near a Dumpster-style trash bin at Cameron and Herr streets.
?It looked out of sorts,? Wadsworth said. ?I could tell something was wrong.?
The dog was frightened, and its uterus had prolapsed.
Wadsworth called city police, who responded promptly.
The officer told Wadsworth ? despite what Mayor Linda Thompson had said on TV ? the city had no contract with the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area Inc.
He could shoot the dog, he said, if she thought it was aggressive.
It wasn?t.
?He said he wished he could do something, he was apologetic,? said Wadsworth, ?but the city has no money. That?s the way it is.?
Luckily, Wadsworth knew some people who rescue animals. ?I made a couple of calls. They made a couple of calls, and the dog was saved,? she said.
According to an internal police department memo, officers have three options when responding to a dog complaint: Kill it, adopt it or dump it.
The Dec. 5 memo from Capt. Annette Books instructs officers to ?destroy? animals at their discretion if the animal is a danger to the public or obviously sick or suffering.
Alternately, the officer can ask the person to adopt the animal or adopt it himself.
Or he may ?place the animal in the prisoner van and release it in an area where it will be safe for the animal.?
Hickey said that?s abandonment, it?s illegal, and any officer doing it ?should be charged.?
The Governor?s Dog Law Advisory Board member said it?s time to play hardball with city officials.
?Somebody in Harrisburg is making up their own laws,? Hickey said.
Every provision of that memo, he said, is illegal.
Hickey said the law is clear: Stray dogs must be kept in a publicly accessible facility for 48 hours ?to give the people whose dog it is an opportunity to find the dog.?
The Department of Agriculture enforces the dog law.
That?s why the memo instructs officers who kill dogs to take the corpses to the back of the Agriculture Department building on Cameron Street.
Hickey said he has spoken with folks at the Agriculture Department and told them, ?If carcasses are brought in, I want them to count the bullet holes.?
?Under Pennsylvania law,? he said, ?you may shoot a dog with one bullet. More than one bullet, and it?s cruelty.?
If a carcass from the city has more than one bullet hole, he said, ?I want the department to charge the person who fired that gun with cruelty.?
A spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture said no carcasses have been delivered to its building.
?We have not had any discussion with the city of Harrisburg regarding this matter,? Samantha Krepps said in an email. ?We have a call in to the police chief. The city of Harrisburg exclusively handles the dog licensing and dog-control activities within the city limits. However, if we are made aware of inappropriate activities, we will pursue.?
Thompson?s spokesman, Robert Philbin, acknowledged the police department?s memo is still in effect.
He and the mayor had previously denied it.
They thought the issues with the Humane Society had been resolved, he said.
The city had failed to pay its bills, and the Humane Society terminated service in October.
Philbin said city officials sat down with leaders of the Humane Society in mid-December and agreed on a number of issues, including that ?payment would be made ? about $6,000 ? that would keep services in place into 2012, when the first-quarter payment could be approved by [the] Council.?
Humane Society Executive Director Amy Kaunas acknowledged payment came in, but said now it?s a new year.
?It?s a whole new ballgame,? Kaunas said. ?We need a new contract.?
Philbin said, ?Our understanding was the payment received last week would keep our relationship going,? but the city has since received letter from the Humane Society ?asking for another $10,000.?
Philbin said: ?The mayor has budgeted $85,000 to the Humane Society for 2012. City Council cut it to $70,000. ... Be that as it may, we are in a budget situation right now. Making any payment to the Humane Society is unlikely deep into February.?
Until then, Philbin said, ?that memo is in effect for the police officers.?
?It?s the best way for them to address the situation,? he said.
Philbin said he didn?t know who devised the memo, calling it ?a policy of the Bureau of Police.?
When told a member of the governor?s Dog Law Advisory Board was calling it illegal, Philbin referred questions to city solicitor Jason Hess, who failed to return multiple messages.
Since Pat Wadsworth found the injured dog New Year?s Eve, other cases have come to light.
A beagle puppy was found shivering in the cold. Police officers told the woman who found it to return the puppy to the street or find a rescue.
A pit bull was found on City Island. A sympathetic police officer called animal rescue.
Hickey said the Humane Society used to get 60 dogs a month from the city.
If they aren?t taking them, and none have appeared dead behind the Department of Agriculture, ?Where are all the dogs going?? he asked. ?There?s something not right here.?
The Central Pennsylvania Animal Alliance, a rescue group, is inundated.
Volunteer Kris Baker, who answered Pat Wadsworth?s call, said, ?We are in a crisis here in the capital city of Pennsylvania.?
Staff writer Matt Miller contributed to this report.
Hannah and Alfie
Re: Horrible situation concerning stray animals in Harrisburg, PA
Sounds like there 's a bit of corruption going on somewhere. Looks like this issue might just be the tip of the iceberg and there are other serious issues going on which could be much worse than this - this is horrible!
Somewhere someone knows something and needs to report it (if this makes sense). I think the state government needs to get involved at this point...someone on the city level is getting "lazy".
?Keep your dogs inside ? don?t risk them getting lost,? Hickey said. ?If it gets lost, you?re going to find out real quickly how bad this is.? - this was the most disturbing part of the entire article (not that the whole thing wasn't horrible and disturbing). All pet owners must be living in fear of their dog getting loose, no one should be this afraid.
The city of Harrisburg is in such a financial mess right now that the state is coming in and taking over. I'm not surprised by this, they have no money/resources for anything.
Thank god someone is taking over because Mayor Thompson, from what I understand, has been awful. I haven't lived in the area for so long so I haven't truly been keeping up but its my home and I desperately miss it. This article is very disheartening. I hate to see something like this happening anywhere let alone Harrisburg.
The city is in a horrible mess, and even before that, our Humane Society was completely out of room. They have a building project started, but lack funding to complete it. Currently every spare inch is taken up with crates. Their Director of Public Relations is a friend of mine and she shares her small office with several animals at all times.
The county below (where I actually live and adopted B from) is doing what they can to help, but they are low on space and resources too.
And as much as I dislike Mayor Thompson and hope that they can force her to resign at some point very very soon, the city was in trouble before she was elected. She has just made it much, much worse.
As for the city police, I happen to know that many of them are animal lovers. I'll be sitting in a building with them, including the Captain, in about two weeks, and I plan to bring this up with them and try to learn more about what they've been told.
For right now, if anyone else is in the Harrisburg area, animal advocates and lovers have been just carrying a spare leash, collar and treats in hopes of getting to any stray animals before the police do. And after that, your best bet is to contact a rescue if you determine the animal is not someone's pet. It's a sad situation, but hopefully we can get through it until the city can make their payment to the Humane Society. (Then they can finish more space off to house/care for more animals.)
It's a shame that animals are the ones who are paying the price.