STU DIES July 23, 2009! Mark your calendar.

What?! That's right. The only thing keeping Stu alive right now is that the Court decision does not become final for 30 days after the ruling. The ruling was issued June 23, 2009--ONE DAY after Board President Tariq Khero and City Attorney Dov Lesel assured the public that there would be NO COURT DECISION for several weeks....at least. Let's listen, shall we?
(audio clip to come).

THE DEPARTMENT OF ANIMAL SERVICES CAN KILL STU ON JULY 23
AND THERE IS NOTHING TO STOP THEM--
EXCEPT YOU.

The Board first took up the matter of revisiting Stu's case and his horrible care in the pound in May 2007. Several attempts were made by the Board to place the issue of Stu on the Board's agenda. All of them were blocked by Ed Boks and Linda Barth. Finally, after 3 months, the Board voted on August 27, 2007 to move Stu from the pound to Bobby Dorafshar's K9s Only facility for the duration of the legal proceedings.

Then we went through 2 years of Court proceedings and brief-writing, etc., etc. City Attorney Todd Leung lied to the Court in his briefs and blocked any attempt to allow the truth into the case.

So, here we are. The City had been successful in keeping the truth that Stu did not receive a fair hearing out of the Courts. Saving Stu and sending him home is now in the hands of the City government. Here's what has to happen:

1. The Board must call and hold a Special Meeting before July 13, which is the next regular Board meeting.The president may call the meeting or 3 Commissioners may call the meeting. As of this writing, no one has called a meeting. At this meeting, which is not scheduled, the Board must discuss the recommendation which they will make, in writing, to Council and the Mayor.
2. At the regular meeting on July 13, the Board must vote to send the recommendation to Council. Council will either refer the matter to the Public Safety Committee or the PS Committee may waive consideration and refer the matter back to the full Council. The City Attorney will advise Council on what powers they have to Save Stu and send him home. Because of the red tape that a recommendation will encounter, the Board must also vote to stay the order to kill Stu for 60 days to allow the matter to work its way through the bureaucracy.
   
3. If the Council votes to make a recommendation to the Mayor, then the Mayor will decide upon the recommendation.

Meanwhile, Board members AND THE PUBLIC may lobby Council members in favor of the recommendation. City Attorney Dov Lesel told them this on June 22, 2009-- that they may contact Councilmembers as individuals or as a Board.

Here's what's happened so far:

Members of the public , and myself, have urged the Board to hold a Special Meeting. The president, Tariq Khero OR 3 Commissioners may call a meeting with 24 hours notice. The Brown Act does not prohibit Commissioners from discussing the setting of a Special Meeting.

Here's what the Board has done: NOTHING.

Here's what you can do: Demand that a Special Meeting of the Board be called before July 13.

Email or preferably FAX your demand that the Board call and hold a Special Meeting before July 13.

1. FAX the Board 213-482-9511. On your Fax COVER SHEET, direct the Board Secretary to forward your fax to ALL Boardmembers IMMEDIATELY.
2. FAX Board president Tariq Khero at his office:

   Nasatir, Hirsch, Podberesky & Genego,PLC FAX: 310-392-9029 [corrected]
   

3. Call Tariq Khero at his office: 310-854-4170
   
4. Email all Boardmembers and REQUEST A REPLY: tariqkhero@gmail.com,
   ninekitties@aol.com, ireneponce@earthlink.net, secundar@unitedtalent.com,
   ajq1trq2@aol.com
5. CC Jeff on your emails: stu.911@gmail.com
6. Flood Animal Services' phones with calls demanding a meeting of the Board

213-482-9506, 9501, 9505,9504

An Open Letter to the Los Angeles City Council to Save My Dog, Stu.

When an issue is presented to Council for action, Council President refers the issue to the appropriate Committee for review and recommendation. The Public Safety Committee oversees the Department of Animals Services. I started there.

Click here for City Council Website Directory
Click here for Council Officers/Committee Assignments
Click here for the Council Calendar

June 23, 2009

City Council
Public Safety Committee
City of Los Angeles
c/o City Clerk, Room 395
City Hall, 200 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012-4801

Dear Councilmembers Weiss, Zine, Parks, Smith and Reyes,

Below is a link to Kate Woodviolet's Examiner.com follow-up story on my dog, Stu, his 4-year-old case and the evidence of malfeasance and obstruction on the part of certain employees within the Department of Animal Services. Please be aware, that only 10 days prior to the oral arguments in the Court of Appeals, the City Attorney's office sent me the attached draft settlement offer (and opposed my request for a continuance in the Court so that I might discuss the offer further) with full knowledge that no consummation of this proposed settlement could be expected in time for the City Council to approve it, before the Court ruled.

These are not coincidences and let me assure you, there have been no coincidences in this case. Ever. This case is one of the last vestiges of the inept and embarrassing tenure of Ed Boks. The only thing left to clean-up (that I know of ) of the mess Mr. Boks made of this Department will be the lawsuit I must file against him and others for these despicable acts. We are about to welcome back to our City legal system what is promised to be a new era of integrity, so says Mr. Trutanich. I hereby give you an opportunity to usher that era in with my dog, Stu in tow.

I beseech you to consider compassionately what I hope will be a forthcoming recommendation from the Board of Animal Services Commissioners to your Public Safety Committee or to the full Council, which will , as I understand the intent of the Board, attempt to preserve the integrity of the Administrative Hearing process, the Department, the Board and the City of Los Angeles by setting aside the previous ill-founded decision to declare Stu to be dangerous and order his destruction. The Board, which you have entrusted to make these decisions is unified on this issue as are thousands of people from our City and around the world: the consensus is to send Stu, a non-dangerous animal home to live out his remaining last couple of years. He was 6 years old when he was first impounded. He is now at least 10 (or 70 in human years).

The Court of Appeals could not remedy this injustice as there was a defective record before them and only myself, a non-lawyer, presenting it to them. However, although the Court has failed to right this horrible injustice , because it was confined to the incomplete record of the case, your Committee and your Council are not so constrained. Please find the time and the attention which this most deserving matter requires.

http://www.examiner.com/x-1779-LA-Pet-Rescue-Examiner~y2009m6d23-Appeals-Court-rules-against-Stu--could-allow-Animal-Services-to-kill-senior-dog

Thank you,

Jeff de la Rosa
Council District 13

Board of Animal Services Slips it's Collar

Somebody forgot to tighten the choke collar which has plagued the Los Angeles Board of Animals Services Commissioners since...forever? At their meeting on June 22, 2009, the Board seemed to go rogue and would not take "no" for an answer. Nor would they take "no answer" for an answer.

For a full week, since Kate Woodviolet's piece on Stu's story appeared at Examiner.com, the Board,City Attorney's office and Linda Barth have been barraged with emails, calls and messages from countless Stu supporters demanding and pleading for mercy and justice.

Item 4A on the agenda, the case of Stu, the evidence dog, which has been impounded for 4 years while his owner/guardian has battled to save him from Death Row and certain execution, was the impetus for the Board shaking off their restraints, but this very admirable show of blazing courage from a Board which has, for years, been accused of being a rubber stamp for the General Manager(s) and the Mayor quickly spread to all business within the Board's control. The last time the Board took bold action in the case of Stu, on August 27, 2007, when they voted unanimously to release Stu from the pound after 2 years and move him to the luxury digs at K9s Only in Tarzana, the Mayor's office clamped down hard. Former Commissioner Marie Atake resigned in protest and disgust and Commissioner Riordan is rumored to have been threatened with removal from the Board after 9 dedicated years of service.

From the 6/22/09 Agenda:

4. DISCUSSION ITEMS
A. Oral Report from the City Attorney on status of Case: Jeffrey Peter De La Rosa v. Animal
Control Board of the City of Los Angeles, et al.; Los Angeles Superior Court Case #
BS104836; Court of Appeal, Case # B202071.

CLOSED SESSION: The Board of Animal Services Commissioners may meet in closed
session with the City Attorney as its legal counsel pursuant to Government Code section
54956.9(a).

First, the was no oral report from the City Attorney. Dov Lesel claimed that Todd Leung, the "litigation attorney" was "not available" to come to the meeting (his office is next door in City Hall East), but sources tell BoardWatch that Mr. Leung was not otherwise engaged in court appearances but was, instead, sitting in his office when the agenda item was called.

+/- Read more...

On the Board's first pitch to the City Attorney at hand, Dov Lesel, Board members asked what actions were in their ability to take to stop the madness of the 4 year persecution of this innocent animal. Mr. Lesel's first response: The Board can do nothing. It's in the hands of the Court of Appeals, he claimed, as the case was submitted (final argument was heard) to the Court on June 18.

Commissioner Quincey was boiling. He stated the he had asked for his motion regarding Stu (the motion was for the Board to direct the City Attorney to withdraw opposition to Stu's owner's appeal in the Courts) to be placed on the agenda more than a month prior (actually , it was more than two months ago, on April 14, 2009) but it had never appeared on the agenda and now his motion was moot. He had intended, apparently, to save the Court the burden of rendering a decision over the life or death of the dog, Stu by instructing the City Attorney's Office to throw in the towel on a case it should not have opposed in the first place, in Quincey's opinion. Quincey wanted an explanation. Commissioner Riordan asked for an explanation. Commissioner Ponce demanded an explanation. Dov Lesel said, "I don't set the Board's agenda. Assistant General Manager Linda Barth disappeared into her chair back and remained silent. There would be no explanation.

At considerable length, Quincey went on to report to the Board and to the public, that he had reviewed the "whole" case file. The 30-year veteran Animal Control Officer reported that he had determined that the case should have been dismissed from the get go. Quincey reported that the bite was reported over a month after the incident and that it was a civil matter--that "there was no violation of the Municipal Code" by Mr. de la Rosa and therefore, there should have been no involvement by the Department of Animal Services. Following Quincey's statements, Commissioner Irene Ponce said, "you could hear a pin drop in here." The Board was stymied and the supporters of Stu, seated in the gallery, just smiled.

It was then that President Tariq Khero told Quincey that if he ever wanted an item placed on the agenda, that he need only send Khero an email. Riordan cautiously erupted.Vice President Kathy Riordan told the room that she had not had much (or any) success in having items placed on the agenda. She implied that not only was it difficult for her to have items placed on the agenda for consideration by the Board, that it was near impossible to achieve this over the obstruction by management.

In the end, through dogged persistence, the Board was able to force City Attorney Dov Lesel, to lay out exactly what the Board could do to settle Stu's case, save his life and return him to his home. Lesel came forth with all kinds of ideas for the Board. They could:

1. Recommend whatever they wanted to City Council as a Board or as individuals. Lesel corrected himself (from his earlier statments that action was out of the City's hands) by saying that settlement of this case was actually in the hands of City Council.
2. Make recommendations to the Council's Public Safety committee which oversees the Department of Animal Services.
3. Direct the City Attorney to file a supplemental paper to the Court of Appeals which stated the Board's position that the Department had botched the case and denied Due Process of law (this is our favorite- Ed.)
4. Schedule an "emergency meeting" of the Board to take whatever action it deemed appropriate.

All of these things are a far cry from Linda Barth's assertions to concerned callers that the Board can "do nothing." Throughout the heated discussion of this item, President Khero appeared to feign that Department management was innocent of any obstruction of the Board 's intentions. It is worth saying that along with the usual copies of the agenda and accompanying documents laid out at the back of the room, were several sets of full-color pictures of Tatiana Edwards's (the dog bite "victim") injuries to her right arm. Nobody seemed interested in them and they did not even bear any identifying information which might have informed the public as to what these pictures were and what they were doing spread out among the meeing literature.

Khero persuaded the Commissioners that no emergency meeting was necessary. Lesel and the Board forced Linda Barth to pledge that , in the event of an unfavorable decision for Stu by the Court, prior to the next regularly scheduled meeting, that the Department would take no action to kill Stu. She added that it was the General Manager who had made the gallant committment that Stu would not be "euthnanized" (read: KILLED) while any actions in the the Court of Appeals or the California Supreme Court were still possible.

So, we wait. We wait to see what, if any, action the Board will take to move City Council to end this fiasco. Will they appear as individuals during the Public Comment period at the next Council Meeting? Will they draft and approve a resolution decrying Stu's innocence and the Department's denial of Due Process of Law in this case? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, we await the opinion of the Court of Appeals. President Khero said , as though he knew, that the Court would surely not release their decision before the next regularly scheduled Board Meeting currently on the books for July 13.

By the way, where was the fifth Commissioner, Ruthanne Secunda? She was conspicuously absent. If the Board had tried to take action, Secunda's vote may have been crucial, since she has previously been sympathetic to the cause of Stu and has let it be known that she would like to see this nightmare end favorably for Stu.

Explain Stu's case to me, Jeff...

As this saga come to what I hope will be a positive resolution for Stu and me, many people are still asking of me what the things were that the City did or did not do which resulted in Stu and me being deprived of Due Process and a fair hearing in this life and death decision process.
First let me explain what Due Process is. The Constitution of the United States and our California Constitution guarantee us certain inalienable rights.

1. We may not be deprived of life, liberty or property without Due Process of Law. That means that :
2. We must be properly notified of the accusations we face and notified of the time and place of a hearing or trial of the issues ;and
3. We must be given an opportunity to present evidence, witnesses in our defense and confront witnesses and cross-examine that witness who may offer testimony against us.
4. The matter must be heard by a neutral, disinterested and impartial trier of fact (judge). In this case, an Animal Control Officer acting as hearing examiner. For the appeal, a panel of Commissioners. We asked for all 5 but were given only 3—the most conservative three-3 lawyers.

Additionally, the Los Angeles Municipal Code is quite specific on how hearings for license revocation (for dogs) and dangerous animals shall be conducted.

The Initial Hearing and General Manager’s Decision:
So, in Stu’s case, what did they do right?


+/- Read more...

1. They notified me of the charges and the time and place of the hearing.
2. They allowed me to cross examine my accuser, but interrupted my questioning, prevented me from asking certain questions regarding the “victim’s” motivation for possibly being untruthful and ruled many of my questions as “irrelevant.”

What did they do wrong?
1. See (2) above.
2. Witnesses

a. The Department’s own Administrative Hearing Guide informs the public of the proper way to request that witnesses be called to appear. I followed it. They did not.

b. They received my written request for several department employees and one LAPD officer to be summoned to appear as witnesses but refused to summon them. Their explanation for this was that they didn’t have to summon any witnesses that the Department did not request.

3. They denied my request to have Stu (and Maeve, in her separate case) evaluated by Dr. Richard Polksy on shelter property. This prevented me from presented evidence which would have shown that Stu was not a dangerous animal and bit only in self-defense as reaction to :
a. Not being able to flee (she closed him into a room and approached him in a corner).
b. Having his wound irritated by the “victim.”

4. Helen Brakemeir. Los Angeles Municipal Code Section 53.18.5 provides that the Hearing Examiner make his report and recommendations from the hearing to the General Manager. Back then, it was Guerdon Stuckey who had just been asked for his resignation. The General Manager shall review the report and recommendations and either accept, reject or modify the Hearing Examiner’s recommendation. This recommendation was to revoke my license for Stu but not to declare him to be a “dangerous animal.” The G.M. may also return the case to the Hearing Examiner for further review modification, if necessary.

This didn’t happen the way the Municipal Code says it should have happened. Instead, somehow and for some reason (her friend, Capt. Karen Stepp despised me), Captain Helen Brakemeir, with no apparent authority, intercepted the Hearing Examiner’s report and wrote her own opinion which urged the G.M. to declare Stu to be “dangerous” and thus killed--even though she did not hear the testimony nor did she attend the hearing; nor was she a hearing examiner or in any other position of authority related to administrative hearings. Brakemeir’s memo states that she wrote the decision letter declaring Stu to be dangerous and placed in folder on the Department’s computer network for Stuckey to sign.

The Appeal before the Board of Animal Services Commissioners:
Grounds for Reversal of the General Manger’s decision.
At the appeal hearing held on March 8, 2006. My attorney (I did not have one at the original hearing) and I raised the issues above as grounds for reversal of the G.M. decision. At the time, we did not know about the Brakemeir memo and were very surprised that the G.M. was imposing a harsher penalty and a rejection of the Hearing Examiner’s recommendation. I did not learn of the Brakemeir memo, and the mystery was not solved, until I made a California Public Records Act request and the memo showed up in the pile of paper which I received from Ross Pool.

Debbie Knaan, The Biased Commissioner:

As my March 2006 appeal approached my attorney requested that all 5 Commissioners sit on the appeals Board (Khero, Riordan, Atake, Brown and Knaan). We felt that Atake and Riordan would pay closer attention to a decision which could end in the killing of an animal. We were denied this request as a “new” experimental appeal hearing calendar was being tried. This would involve only 3 Commissioners who would volunteer for evening appeal hearings held outside of regular Board meetings. We protested to no avail and were assigned Khero, Knaan, and Brown. Brown has been appointed to the Board only two months before.

On (or about) February 2, 2006 Deborah Knaan called me at my home. She was responding to my complaints that Stu was not being properly cared for at the pound (another story). After we discussed how that could or would be remedied, she said, “Tell me about the cases. And you have to tell the truth.” I found this to be unusual for a prospective “judge” to be interrogating me, but I knew she was a Deputy District Attorney and I was somewhat intimidated by what I viewed as her special authority. I told her everything I knew about both Stu’s and Maeve’s case.

Afterward, I called my attorney and he was shocked that she would engage in ex parte (without the other party) communication with a “defendant” prior to sitting on the appeal Board. Knaan also warned me, during the conversation, that the Board does not “always side with the animal.” In 2007, I discovered that Knaan had told both Marie Atake and Kathy Riordan that she thought I was a “liar and a creep.” She told them this before my appeal hearing and then participated in it. Ethically, and possibly legally, she should have disqualified herself if her feelings against me were so strong. My attorney should have disqualified her after she called me and interrogated me. Yes, she will be included in my lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles. Imagine you are arrested for …whatever. Before your trial, the judge calls you on the phone and asks for all the details about the case. Then he rules on your case. Whether he rules for or against you, both decisions would be tossed on appeal for judicial bias, or the appearance of that bias.

Knaan Runs the Appeal Hearing…Right into the Muck.

At the appeal hearing, Brakemeir appeared for the Department instead of the District Supervisor, Karen Stepp. I’ve always thought that Stepp would not hold up if she was accused of personal bias against me. Knaan took charge of the meeting, although technically, Khero as Vice President was supposed to run the thing. So there we were in front of 4 law degrees (City Attorney Dov Lesel included).

They took Maeve’s appeal hearing first and talked at length about my request for witnesses which was denied (this discussion and other documents is what caused the Judge in Maeve’s Superior Court Case to throw the case out).

After a short break, they started Stu’s appeal hearing. The “victim” was allowed to talk for awhile and even allowed to present new evidence. My attorney and I were constantly interrupted, by Knaan, and often precluded from finishing a point or topic. Because in depth discussion had already taken place in Maeve’s previous hearing, it was not repeated for Stu’s hearing. This is one of the things, discovered later, that caused Stu’s case in the Superior Court (different judge than Maeve’s) to suffer and which caused me to have to go on to the Court of Appeals, which added 2 years on to the already protracted process. If I were as experienced with legal procedure then as I am now, I would not have let this happen and world have forced the Board to allow us to repeat all of the discussion surrounding the requested, but denied, witnesses.

The Board's Appeal Decision.

On March 28, 2006, the Board rendered their decision at a regular Board Meeting held at a L.A. Library in the Valley. Can’t remember which. One might think that with two separate cases, they would take 2 votes and give 2 decisions. They didn’t. In one motion, they voted to uphold the General Manager’s decisions to revoke Maeve’s license and declare Stu to be dangerous (so he could be killed).
That ends the Department involvement as I headed on to Superior Court where I prevailed in Maeve’s case without an attorney—mostly due to a complete record which showed that 1) I had requested witnesses for my hearing and 2) that they were denied—a pretty clear cut case of denial of Due Process and that’s how the judge ruled. The lack of this evidence in Stu’s case is why we are where we are now.

I don’t know how the Court of Appeal will rule on Stu’s case. The record is spotty and the evidence of Due Process violations is not so obvious. However, the Brakemeir memo is there and I make a big deal about it in my briefs and in my oral argument. I can only hope that the justices look closely at this case, as I have asked them to do and make a decision which conforms to the one made for Maeve: that I am entitled to a new hearing on whether Stu should be declared a dangerous animal. Stay tuned.

Groundswell of Disgust Grows Over Delgadillo's 4 Year Persecution of a Dog.

Will Carmen Trutanich put an end to misery for a man and his dog which Delgadillo's attorneys have perpetuated for 4 years?

If you would like to urge City Attorney Elect Carmen Trutanich to take immediate action to stop this madness as soon as he takes office on July 1, write, call and fax him at:

		Trutanich Mitchell, LLP 180 East Ocean Boulevard
		Long Beach CA 90802-4079 Tel: 562) 216-4444 Fax: (562) 216-4445

Kinship Circle organizes and facilitates public support for animal welfare causes. KC's most recent
Action Alert regarding Stu's case can be viewed at Change.org or at KC's own blog.

Examiner.com has published a terrific article by Kate Woodviolet on the "Stu, the Dog" case. At our publishing time, 48 comments have been registered AGAINST actions of the City of Los Angeles--the most comments ever lodged in any of Woodviolet's articles on pet issues in Los Angeles. The recently updated piece appears in its entirety:

Playing political games with a dog's life

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-1779-LA-Pet-Rescue-Examiner~y2009m6d17-Playing-political-games-with-a-dogs-life

June 17, 12:10 PM

By Kate Woodviolet

UPDATED After sitting in what amounts to dog jail for almost four years, a dog named Stu could be put to death soon; or he could finally go home to an owner who's been fighting for his life since 2005.

Rescued from the streets in 2000 by Jeff de la Rosa, for five years Stu lived peacefully with de la Rosa and his two other dogs. In August of 2005 de la Rosa was called out of town by a family emergency. He left the dogs in the care of an assistant who knew them. Following an uncharacteristic scuffle between Stu and one of the other dogs during which Stu's ear was torn, the assistant, in an attempt to take Stu to the vet, approached the wounded dog and tried to put a harness on him, over his injured ear (pet care experts always recommend using extreme caution, even a muzzle, when dealing with injured pets, because often even a normally friendly pet can lash out when fearful and in pain). During her attempt to harness him, a frightened Stu bit the assistant twice on the arm.

De la Rosa offered to pay the assistant's medical bills and says she initially told him she "didn't want to get Stu in trouble." He says when she went to the hospital she told emergency room staff that she didn't know the dog who had bitten her. She didn't call the police or L.A. Animal Services.+/- Read more...

According to de la Rosa, three weeks after the incident, without warning, he was served with a lawsuit. Ten days later he came home to find Stu missing from a locked outdoor kennel, and the gate on his fence pried open from the outside. He received a call from Animal Services that Stu had been "found and brought in by an unidentified private citizen." When de la Rosa arrived to retrieve his dog, Animal Services staff told him they had just received a bite report, one month after the incident, and they refused to release Stu.

The assistant, by that time represented by a law firm specializing in wresting large dog-bite settlements from homeowners' insurance carriers, now claimed that Stu had "dragged her back and forth across the floor." De la Rosa says she was seeking six million dollars in damages.

Stu with former Animal Services Board Commissioner Marie Atake. Atake famously resigned in 2007, frustrated in her attempts to increase Department integrity and professionalism

Following LAAS policy, a hearing was held to determine whether Stu had a history of aggression and whether he was likely to bite again if released. While the Hearing Examiner found that Stu had caused an injury, he felt it was sufficient to revoke the dog's license, which would have given de la Rosa the opportunity to find a place for Stu outside City limits, or to move. It was a verdict that would have given Stu back his life.

But that's when Animal Services Departmental policy went off the rails. Although LAAS policy was, and is, that the Hearing Examiner's recommendations determine the outcome, a Department captain apparently unrelated to the matter, a Captain Helen Brakemeier, interceded, telling then-General Manager Guerdon Stuckey in a memo that, "After reviewing the [Hearing Examiner's] report and all of the exhibits, I disagree with [his] recommendation and think that the dog should be deemed dangerous." Nowhere in the memo does Brakemeier indicate that she has personally met or evaluated the dog, nor what if any authority she has to overrule the hearing officer's verdict. Nevertheless, Stuckey concurred with Brakemeier, allegedly without even reading the report. His decision to deem Stu a "dangerous dog" was a sentence of death.

Animal Services Commissioner Kathy Riordan told me, "That's the first time I'd ever seen a General Manager increase the penalty [for an animal]." Within days, Stuckey was fired as General Manager by Mayor Villaraigosa, ironically, according to the L.A. Times, for failing to reduce shelter killing. De la Rosa says he was never informed about the role Brakemeier had played in condemning Stu. Her seemingly irregular participation in the process of determining the dog's fate came to light only after de la Rosa requested all documents related to the case in the wake of the unexpected LAAS verdict that Stu was too dangerous to live.

Since then Stu has been held by the City, or in City-designated facilities, and de la Rosa has been fighting to save his dog's life. Respected dog behaviorists, including Dr. Richard Polsky, who in 1987 helped formulate the City standards for assessing dangerous dogs; and Bobby Dorofshar of New Leash on Life, who has also worked with the City and been a member of the Spay/Neuter Advisory Committee, have stated that Stu is not aggressive toward humans. Their opinions are based on behavioral evaluations, assessments of his behavior prior to the incident, and an understanding of the ways the victim's actions towards Stu when he was injured may have unintentionally provoked the bites. In Dorofshar's case, he has voluntarily housed Stu at his own facility and has had the opportunity to get to know Stu over many months.

Nevertheless, Animal Services and the City Attorney's office have refused to budge, continuing to insist that the now-elderly Stu must die. Arguments in the Court of Appeals are scheduled for June 18th.

Stu, on the day he was impounded by L.A. Animal Services

Ironically, de la Rosa's fight to ensure humane treatment for his dog while in custody, and to save Stu's life, may have made his battle tougher. Allegations of a pattern of retaliatory behavior on the part of Animal Services management towards critics have surfaced repeatedly in the humane/rescue community over the years. In the days prior to the forced resignation of the most recent General Manager, Ed Boks, the City Council rebuked him publicly for blogging against his critics, including de la Rosa, on City time.

Even the Animal Services Commission, which was instituted as a supervisory body to the Animal Services Department, has fought for mercy for Stu. Commissioner Archie Quincey, who boasts a thirty-year career in L.A. County animal control, authored a motion that directs the City Attorney to drop his opposition to de la Rosa's appeal. Quincey wants the case returned to the Superior Court and wants that court to set aside Stu’s sentence based on evidence that the dog was denied due process. However, in subsequent meetings Commissioner Quincey's motion has not appeared on the agenda. Then, without warning or explanation, the June 8th meeting, the last scheduled before Stu’s Appeals Court arguments, was cancelled.

This points out another puzzling aspect of this story: the fact that even though the Animal Services Commission has a supervisory role over the Animal Services Department, it's unclear who determines the agenda for Commission meetings. Although nominally the Board President sets the agenda, in the minutes for the April 14th meeting, after Commissioner Quincey introduced his motion to free Stu, it was Department Assistant General Manager Linda Barth, not Board President Tariq Khero, who tells the Commission that, "the item is already agendized for the next meeting." Reached for comment, Barth stated that the Board President sets the agenda. She said the matter was subsequently discussed in closed session, but it was unclear if she meant specifically Commissioner Quincey's motion or Stu's case in general. She referred further questions to the City Attorney's office. A call to Deputy City Attorney Todd Leung, who has spearheaded the City's case against Stu, was not returned. Nor was a call to Board President Tariq Khero, and a call and email to incoming City Attorney Carmen Trutanich, who takes office July 1st.

[June 18th: Interestingly, although Assistant General Manager Linda Barth referred all further inquiries to the City Attorney's office, when I called the City Attorney's office today they were referring calls back to L.A. Animal Services.]

The next Commission meeting is scheduled for June 22. When asked if the motion would be discussed, Commissioner Quincey said, "If it's not on the agenda, I'm going to raise hell." He said, "I think it's gone too far. I have a lot of Animal Control experience. I saw the pictures [of the human victim's injuries], there were a couple of small puncture wounds -- and the dog was injured when it happened. On that one bite Stu gets the ultimate penalty? That's like getting the electric chair for a misdemeanor!"

When asked what he thought would be a just outcome, Quincey said, "I think Stu should go home."

If you would like to register your opinion on Stu's fate, you can contact the City Attorney's office at: (213) 978-8100

(end of repost)

If you would like to urge Carmen Trutanich to take immediate action to stop this madness as soon as he takes office on July 1, write, call and fax him at:

	Trutanich Mitchell, LLP 180 East Ocean Boulevard
	Long Beach
	CA
	USA
	90802-4079

(Tel: 562) 216-4444

Fax: (562) 216-4445