Companion Animal Care Articles from All-Creatures.org

The Director of Arguably the Worst Pound in the U.S. Has Been Removed

From Nathan Winograd
September 2024

The lawsuit alleged a shocking, callous, and ongoing failure to follow California law by keeping animals in dirty kennels, under inhumane conditions, subject to being killed in a helter-skelter manner and placed in barrels to be disposed.

The director of the Riverside County pound in California has been removed and reassigned to another agency after residents filed a lawsuit demanding that she be declared unfit to run the facility. The lawsuit alleged " shocking, callous, and ongoing failure to follow California law" by keeping animals "in dirty kennels, under inhumane conditions, subject to being killed in a helter-skelter manner and placed in barrels to be disposed."

According to petitioners:

"The photographs above were taken by a community member visiting the San Jacinto facility of [Riverside County Department of Animal Services] RCDAS. What she saw was appalling — the dog in the picture on the bottom had been dead for some period of time and the dog pictured on the top was laying on an excrement-covered floor with more excrement on the dog's body…

"These disturbing photographs of animal cruelty are emblematic of the fundamental failings and pervasive deficiencies, the inertia and inaction, of RCDAS and its Director, [Erin] Gettis. RCDAS under the direction of Gettis is plagued with lack of leadership, mismanagement, budget opacity, disdain for the health and safety of animals in its custody, disinterest in working with the community and rescue organizations to place animals in homes, inertia in moving to adopt no kill policies, and a focus on killing, rather than saving, dogs and cats. This must stop."

Under Gettis, the Riverside County pound "killed more animals than any other reporting shelter in the United States."

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Posted on All-Creatures.org: September 13, 2024
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