Painful Truth . org News They die waiting for someone to save them…

Memphis Animal Shelter Neglect

Six month old puppy on Aug 18th, 2009 brought to shelter for animal cruelty case.

It is surely hard for some people to imagine that a city ran animal shelter could starve animals to death and neglect them. This is not unheard of and many city shelters are nothing but shacks of death. The animals are not properly vetted, not fed properly and little to no funding is provided for their care.  There are others that are largely funded but corruption exists that stops the animals from being properly taken care of. The animal shelter in Memphis was raided after an informant that worked at the shelter provided images and information.

It has been a few weeks since this occurred but I just had not had the time to put together a post on the subject. It needs to be done to show others out there that this time of neglect can occur anywhere. A warrant was issued for the raid of the animal shelter and named two people shelter director, Ernest Alexander and Ivan Russell a field supervisor at the shelter. Three employees have been suspended with pay as well.

Just two weeks later this is the same puppy, it died on Sep 4th.

Alexander was hired in 2006 to run the shelter. It has came to light that Alexander was involved in neglect alligations linked to a shelter in Albuquerque, NM.  Mayor Wharton of Memphis has fired Alexander. Who was raking in almost $100k a year to run the shelter that was starving animals to death and neglecting them. Three dogs were starved to death and information was given to the county Sheriffs department and this led to the warrant to raid the shelter.

It seems that top officials in government in Memphis were aware of the corruption and neglect going on at the animal shelter. They were given photographs and other evidence but it was not a big concern to them, as nothing was done.

After the raid took place and all this information flooded into the media animal activists and citizens came rushing forward angry for something to be done.

CITY OF MEMPHIS ANIMAL SHELTER The Way Forward

In light of recent developments at the animal shelter, inclusive of preliminary findings of an internal investigation, the following are action being taken as measures to improve the quality of animal care and the delivery of overall services:

1) Hire an Interim Facility Coordinator

The Interim Coordinator will be responsible for the following tasks:

” Providing leadership in managing the fiscal resources of the animal shelter ” Monitoring the department’s operating and capital budget – making appropriate recommendations ” Establishing and administering performance measures to support the day-to-day operations within the budget ” Reporting developments to the Mayor

2) Enlist the services of an Interim Operations Control Manager/Reinstate the Operations Control Manager position

” In the interim, the city will enlist the services of a highly-qualified operations control manager with expansive knowledge of animal care and control. ” This individual will work in lockstep with the Mayor’s Task Force. ” This individual will ensure strict compliance with all updated policies and procedures. ” Qualifications for the Operations Control position will be rewritten to require enhanced experience in animal care and control.

3) Activate the Mayor’s Task Force to engage in Systematic Monitoring

” Representatives from animal advocacy groups and animal professionals with the mayor’s newly-formed Animal Shelter Task Force will work with the Interim Operations Control Manager to implement best practices at the shelter. ” Members of the Mayor’s Task Force will work with the Interim Facility Coordinator and the Division Director in providing daily monitoring of the shelter and of staff.

4) Install Video Cameras ” Starting at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, November 6, operations at the animal shelter can be viewed by web camera 24 hours a day via the City of Memphis’ website: www.memphistn.gov

5) Increase Veterinarian Services

” Two Veterinarians will now be contracted to perform services at the shelter.

Cameras have been installed so the public can watch what is going on at the shelter, you can view them by clicking here.

About Courtnee

Courtnee is the owner/admin of Painfultruth.org and does death row dog rescue work.