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The No Kill Advocacy Center filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County, its Department of Animal Care and Control, and the Department's Director, Marcia Mayeda. The lawsuit alleges unlawful and abusive treatment of animals at all six Los Angeles County animal shelters.

The complaint, (WARNING: GRAPHIC PICTURES INCLUDED) which is 29 pages long (PDF), includes a number of allegations of against the department, including:

• Kills healthy and treatable animals before their state mandated holding period expires;
• Misclassifies animals as "ill" or "injured" in order to kill them before their holding period expires even though the animals are not irremediably suffering as required by state law;
• Kills lost animals without making reasonable attempts to find the animals' owners;
• Fails to provide adequate veterinary care to impounded animals, resulting in animal deaths;
• Fails to provide adequate nutrition, water, shelter and exercise to impounded animals and to treat the animals humanely and kindly;
• Refuses to release animals to rescue groups that are willing to care for the animals until adoptive homes can be found and, instead, kills the animals.

I put this on the homepage, and I also have a seperate page for this story.

I hear horror stories about the south LA shelter all the time. Mainly about them not rotating animals into the "adoptables" area, and if they're sick, they just throw them in a kennel in the back to die.

They're just SO far away, and there are so many animals in between....................

How can anyone be so cruel? What kind of people do they employ!!! animal abusers?!?!??!

These aren't people and we can't say they're animals!     

I don't understand and never will! 

That's horrible!

I could not read the whole story.  I did not want to deal with the heartache at this time.  I am hoping the publicity will make LA take responsibilty for their actions and be more reasonable about HUMANE care for the animals.
Bastards!

I couldn't read it all either.  My imagination fills it in.

If this is known about and has been known about for some time~~~~ why does it continue?   

Maybe we should write to their governer

I do hope this suit brings about some necessary change.  Sadly, it doesn't do anything for the animals that have already suffered and/or needlessly lost their lives.

It is a sad reality, the amount of misconduct, abuse, etc. that goes on in numerous shelters, not just the shelters in L.A.  Sadly, many states and cities do not make these issues a priority.  We can only hope this suit hits the media spotlight, at least enough to enlighten more people of the seriousness of the issues within the shelters.

There are obviously some shelters in our country that have a far better track record, but, I think many of us would be mortified at what goes on in a lot of shelters. 

It's a sad, shameful situation that needs to be changed, and there is no reason why it can't be changed.

The defendants in this particular suit should be more than ashamed of their actions, and lack thereof when it came to providing adequate care for these innocent beings in their care.  Numerous innocent lives have been taken, and too much needless suffering has gone on.  They do need to be held accountable for their actions, and an example needs to made.

When a human being willingly participates in any of these cruel acts to innocent animals, it truly speaks volumes about the person. 

  Well said, Gail.

I could only imagine they hire PETA, to me there is no other
explanation than something like that. These people they have
working for them just do not care. I hope to be able to follow
this case and see the outcome.