Did a humane officer go too far?
By Gina Spadafori
August 17, 2007
Were the windows rolled up tight with a dog dying in the heat inside, as the humane officer says? Or cracked with a breeze, as the owner says? Was the owner more concered about the car than the dog after the humane offer broke the window in? Did the officer leave the owner to be beaten by a mob or did he leave because it was the only chance of saving the dog’s life?
The Toronto Star looks at the he said/he said case of Cyrus the hot Rott (who survived, and whose owner is fighting for his return).
Tre Smith, a Toronto Humane Society investigator, and Paul Soderholm, a dog owner charged with animal cruelty, tell night-and-day versions of what happened between them a few weeks ago.
The two became embroiled in a harrowing incident involving a Rotweiller named Cyrus, a set of handcuffs and vigilante bystanders.
Here’s what is indisputable: Smith smashed a window and pulled Cyrus from an overheated SUV. He handcuffed Soderholm to the car. The dog owner lost three teeth after being beaten by angry animal lovers and Smith was suspended from his duties as a Humane Society investigator.
Soderholm was charged with animal cruelty. Two men were charged with assaulting him.
Check out the story, which included details on the massive surge of Internet support for the officer.
We’ll need to see what witnesses say happened. Leaving a culprit handcuffed alone with an angry mob is inexcusable, but the officer says he left the man “under the gentle watch of five female friends until police showed up.” Don’t really see the necessity of handcuffs as he could have gotten the accused man’s address from the car registration.
Our area has had a recent incident with a K-9 police dog dying in a car (100 plus degrees)after being “forgotten” by his handler for 12 hours. News blogs have been flooded with comments ranging from “it was only a dog” to “arrest the officer for manslaughter or 2nd degree murder”. The official investigations are still underway, but feelings are running so high that one news reporter wrote an article reminding folks of the danger of mobs —
“Which brings us to the most important point to be made about mobs: They are always wrong.
Even a mob that has a point is wrong. Especially that mob, because you can’t serve a just cause unjustly. Even those of us who own and love dogs and who mourn the loss of the dog called Bandit should understand that.
Dogs rule. Not mobs.”
http://www.azcentral.com/news/.....i0816.html
Comment by shadepuppy — August 17, 2007 @ 4:32 pm
According to the Ontario SPCA, Officer Smith was suspended, not because of the handcuffs, but because his paperwork on the case had not been received. Obviously, there were other alternatives to the handcuffing, and you and I could all have done this better than Officer Smith did at the time.
Anyway, the OSPCA and Toronto Humane Society have been having a dogfight for ages. More details on this Itchmo thread:
http://tinyurl.com/ypyn6u
There are plenty of politics going on. This might just be the call to action that the provincial legislators need to get off their duffs. The Ontario SPCA Act dates back to the days of Black Beauty, and is woefully behind the laws of the other provinces. In fact, I think that in the US, only Mississippi is equivalent. Soderholm can get a maximum $2,000 fine and up to 6 months in jail (the jail term is seldom invoked). Of course, this self-professed victim got a few boo-boo’s added to his sentence. He desperately wants his beloved Cyrus back, despite leaving the dog for several hours in a car with the windows “cracked” on a hot day. Wonder if he would be willing to reimburse the Toronto Humane Society the $10,000 in vet bills that they incurred to bring his dog back. Somehow, I think he’s more interested in his windshield.
The good news is that the provincial legislators may just get a Round Tuit this fall, with an impending provincial election. Ostensibly, Monte Kwinter, the Minister of Correctional Services, has been working with a task force for several months to look into the OSPCA Act’s deficiencies. The objective would be to increase penalties and give animal-cruelty inspectors more powers.
Officer Smith may just be the photogenic poster boy that will bring enough public anger to bear to finally break through over a century of inadequate legal recourse for animals. On that, the OSPCA and the Toronto Humane Society can agree.
Comment by shibadiva — August 17, 2007 @ 5:23 pm
Shibadiva, do you have a reference for the $10,000 vet bills to save cyrus? That seems inflated to me. I do think it would be great if offenders were required to pay for the cost of enforcement.
Comment by Margaret — August 20, 2007 @ 2:24 pm