McGill's attorney Anthony Lyons maintains that his client "has done nothing to harm animals" and contends he is a victim of "a lot of political wrangling" from those who want his job.
In the aftermath of these mistreatment allegations, Robertson resigned, a decision which Turner says was made entirely by Robertson. Meanwhile McGill and Jones have been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigations. Jackson was reinstated to an administrative position in Code Compliance earlier this month. Turner says none of them is getting special treatment. But a paragraph from the 2001 Humane Society report condemns just such actions:
Mark Graham
Lieutenant Scott Walton, interim division manager at Dallas Animal Services, has
demonstrated his “compassion” charge to shelter workers by fostering shelter
kittens at home. He believes “responsible pet ownership,” including strict adherence to spay and neuter laws, will be the best
long-term solution for the shelter.
Mark Graham
The 2010 Humane Society audit of DAS found that cat keepers were "overwhelmed" by minimum daily responsibilities. Here, veterinary assistant Ameha Gebremichael checks on a kitten after an exam.
Details
Related Content
More About
"HSUS team members were informed through public comment that at least two employees of DAC had been placed on administrative leave, but not terminated, for mistreatment of animals. If this is true, such behavior cannot and should not be tolerated."
Not only is administrative leave for animal cruelty tolerated at DAS, but according to Turner, it's policy. And from 2001 to 2010, critics of DAS both inside and outside the department say bad policy has been the standard.
"Too often they have employed people who just never gave a damn about animals. They hire just to fill a position," Feare says. The results have been animal cruelty allegations, department mismanagement and public relations nightmares. "Dallas Animal Services sets itself up to fail again and again."
Had 2010 not brought highly publicized incidents of animal mistreatment by shelter employees, the Humane Society report released on November 2010 would have been damning enough. Despite the opening of a state-of-the-art facility, the report made it seem as though little had been done to implement its 2001 findings and many of the same problems persisted in 2010.
Humane Society auditors again found that relations between supervisors and staff remained poor because of fear of retaliation; training continued to be shoddy, and cat keepers "were barely able to provide the essentials of care." The report also called for taking dogs into the exercise yard for 30 minutes a day, in addition to assuaging "feelings of alienation among staff." Many of the fixes were not particularly expensive or time-consuming, such as discontinuing the use of string collars and refraining from the use of catch poles except when absolutely necessary.
Jonnie England has spent days poring over the newest report, highlighting things that the HSUS wanted fixed nearly 10 years ago. "It [shows] a lack of compassion," she says, "and to a large extent, I think a lot of it's a lack of focus."
Despite all that has happened, Assistant City Manager Turner doesn't see the past year as being a particularly bad one. "I wouldn't call it a lost year or a failure," he says before acknowledging that "it's been a tough year."
Turner says he doesn't want to look back, reluctant to talk about anything that happened before he arrived on the scene in 2007. He has little to say about the McGill matter, calling it "something for the courts to decide." According to Turner, DAS is swiftly moving forward, and interim shelter director Scott Walton is a big piece of that.
When Lieutenant Walton first heard DAS needed a fix-it guy, he didn't even wait until the end of a CompStat meeting to e-mail Dallas Police Chief David Brown about his desire for the job.
Walton recalls sending the message from his Blackberry. "It went something to the effect of: Chance for public failure, little to no support, employees divided against each other? I'll take the job."
When Walton took over shelter operations last September, he began preaching a kind of tough love, combining protocol and procedure with his most important charge, he says: "Compassion."
As former ASC chairwoman Andy Allen puts it: "It will take someone going in there with a badge and a gun."
With the HSUS report under review and a professional search agency retained by the city to find a permanent shelter director, Walton has identified three priorities for DAS under his authority: to increase live releases by getting pets out to good, loving homes or rescue groups; to improve the use of resources in the field for loose and aggressive animals; and, most important, Walton says, to facilitate responsible pet ownership. And that means enforcement of Dallas' strict spaying and neutering ordinances that require pet owners to "fix" their animals unless they can prove they're responsible breeders. Compassion can only go so far when owners allow their animals to breed freely and overpopulate the streets and, by extension, the city shelter.
To that end, the lieutenant has hit the ground running. He's cranked up the DAS Facebook page advertising pets for adoption. He requires shelter workers to report to an 8 a.m. detail each morning. He has a policy of greater transparency compared to previous administrations, allowing reporters to roam freely in the shelter hallways.
"When we don't do our best job here at DAS, [the public is] going to take notice," Walton says. "We really are working with lives, and each one of them is important."
On a Wednesday morning in mid-December, Walton is power-walking through the shelter, passing out to employees Christmas tree ornaments—paid for out of his own pocket—decorated with cat and dog stickers and with "DAS 2010" printed on them.
![A Man Was Gunned Down Last Night in Southlake's Town Square [Updated]](http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/common/assets/701554.75x75.jpg)
