Judge Orders Animals Returned….Humane Society Slow to Respond

29 Dec 2013 1 Comment

by truthfarmer in Animal Welfare Tags: , , , ,

Velma Muessemeyer had her animals confiscated by the St Louis Humane Society and the Franklin County Missouri Sheriff’s Department in November. A judge ordered those animals be returned, and my understanding is that St Louis Humane Society has not yet responded to the judge’s order. Here is an article which repeats an error about a previous seizure of Muessemeyer’s property. It states that 150 sick animals were taken previously. In the original articles regarding the seizure, the animals were not all couched as being sick. Some of them were reported to have respiratory issues, and the writer of the error extrapolated that to all of the animals being “sick”. Kind of like having 150 school kids. A few of them might have sniffles, and therefore they are all “sick”. It makes one wonder about the state of the educational system in Journalism…I guess if I were to follow their trend I’d say that all journalists are unintelligent, which is patently untrue.

Here is an article regarding the most recent order on Muessemeyer’s animals:

Judge orders return of animals taken by Humane Society from St. Clair property

FRANKLIN COUNTY • A judge here has ordered that animals taken by the Humane Society from a home near St. Clair — the second such seizure at that property in 3½ years — be returned to their owner, who is charged with animal abuse.

But despite the judge’s order, which was issued last week, the animals have not been returned, said one of the owner’s attorneys.

The 192 rabbits, 25 goats, 10 cats, 21 chickens, four dogs and a duck were taken Nov. 12 from Velma Muessemeyer’s property in the 1300 block of Parkway Drive.

The Humane Society’s Animal Cruelty Task Force joined Franklin County sheriff’s deputies who entered the property after obtaining a search warrant. A tipster concerned about conditions on the property alerted authorities.

The animals were living in dirty and dangerous conditions without shelter from the cold, the Humane Society said at the time. Rabbits were kept in raised wire-bottom cages with feces piled inside as well as up to a foot below the cages.

The goats appeared to be suffering from respiratory problems, while the cats and other animals were living in dirty conditions in a home on the property, the Humane Society said.

Muessemeyer, 75, was charged with 21 counts of misdemeanor animal abuse stemming from the treatment of the animals. But Franklin County Associate Circuit Judge David Tobben ordered on Dec. 19 that the animals be returned to Muessemeyer. In his order, he said that evidence showed some of the animals were underweight and ill but that there was no evidence the vast majority of the animals were in danger.

“If the issue were the propriety of taking children into custody based on the condition of the property, there is no question in the court’s mind that the condition of the property, especially the house, justifies such action,” Tobben wrote. “The issue is not neglect of children however, it is neglect of animals.”

Taylor Goodale, an attorney from Union who is representing Muessemeyer, said Friday that she had done nothing wrong and that taking the animals was a violation of her property rights. He also said she had been raising animals for about 60 years.

The property is the same one where more than 150 sick rabbits and other animals were seized in February 2010. Franklin County prosecutors made an agreement not to charge the property owner if she agreed not to have any animals other than her two pet dogs, some goats and rabbits. That probation ended in February 2012.

The Humane Society said it had filed suit to retain the animals.

“The care and protection of these animals is the main priority of the Humane Society of Missouri, and we will pursue all lawful means to gain permanent legal custody to ensure their welfare,” the organization said in a statement.

Efforts to reach Bob Parks, the Franklin County prosecutor, were not immediately successful.

 

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Saving Them Through Killing Them…

14 Nov 2013 2 Comments

by truthfarmer in Animal Welfare, Consolidation, Control Tags:

This goes right along with the article I posted on ivory a few days back. While it should be obvious to those who have a passing acquaintance with me that I am not animal fighting, the issues exposed in the following article represent the actual normal MO of the animal rights and HSUS groups in this country. To take others property and destroy it without due process is unconscionable, and that is exactly what happened here. All in the name of saving animals, they kill them, and they didn’t go into the food chain either. Waste. Profligate waste. To be clear, it really hacks me off.

AG King’s animal instincts

He’s a defender of horses, but his task force slaughtered chickens

THE COLUMN

It took more than three years and a private citizen’s lawsuit before state Attorney General Gary King released hundreds of emails that he wrote or received.

All of them involved King’s aptly named animal cruelty task force. It killed thousands of chickens on ranches across New Mexico and reveled in publicity that the raids received.

As attorney general, King is supposed to champion requests from the public for government records. But when it came to releasing his own emails, he was as stubborn as any politician.

King’s reluctance was understandable if you knew anything about the brutal pack of raiders who operated as the Attorney General’s Animal Cruelty Task Force.

An Albuquerque woman named Marcy Britton filed a public records request for King’s emails way back in June 2009. She said she was convinced that King’s task force was trampling constitutional rights and running roughshod over ranches owned mostly by Hispanics.

King’s raiders slaughtered roosters, hens and chicks under the claim that they were stopping cockfighting rings that had injected the birds with steroids.

“Truth is, they killed more chickens than cockfighting ever did,” said Ronnie Barron, president of the New Mexico Game Fowl Association.

Now father and son ranchers in San Juan County are suing King and his task force in federal court. The ranchers say King’s organization — using police officers, sheriff’s deputies, a helicopter and plenty of intimidation — needlessly killed 730 of their chickens and smashed a thousand eggs in a raid four years ago.

King, a Democrat who is running for governor, declined to discuss that case because the lawsuit is ongoing.

Court records list the leader of King’s animal cruelty task force as Heather Ferguson, who had no law enforcement training.

In one email to King, Ferguson was effusive about the attention she and King’s raiders were receiving. “Over 300 roosters have been seized, and coverage should be on all 3 stations tonight starting at 5,” she wrote.

In his own court affidavit, King said he was unaware of Ferguson’s role in orchestrating raids, even though she was the public face of his task force.

Ferguson was director of cruelty campaigns for Animal Protection of New Mexico, a political ally of King’s.

Though King is silent about the chicken raids, he is outspoken regarding his newest cause involving animals. He is aligned with Animal Protection of New Mexico in trying to stop horse-slaughter plants from reopening in America. A federal judge’s order authorizing the businesses was appealed by King and other opponents.

King said horse slaughter was cruel and that it could contaminate food supplies because horses often are drugged. But what about the thousands of feral horses that roam the arid West, looking for food and water? These horses have received no drugs.

John Boyd, the lawyer who sued King in the email case, also represents the Yakama tribe, which supports horse slaughter plants as a sensible means of population control.

“Certainly the attorney general has not put any evidence into the record to substantiate claims of horse meat entering the (American) food chain,” Boyd said.

He said the Yakama reservation had seen declines in deer, antelope and elk as the number of wild horses swelled to between 12,000 and 15,000. Boyd says these feral horses live in pain.

“They starve to death. They die of thirst. It’s not the picture of wild horses that people like to imagine, manes flowing in the wind,” he said.

As for the email case, Boyd will ask a state judge for summary judgment against King after a different case before the state Supreme Court is decided. That case is to determine if public officials who withhold emails are subject to fines.

For King, the email lawsuit will keep alive his raiders’ destruction of chickens and eggs, even as he fights lawful businesses from slaughtering horses for food.