City Approved Terrorism

Due to recent actions by Animal Control officers, we are advising people not to be at Long Beach Convention Center for a protest of Eukanuba/AKC dog show. While all of us are perfectly willing to be arrested/jailed on behalf of the animals, and we believe that Animal Control would create a false reason for arresting people, our time and energy is better spent agitating for change outside of a jail cell and with free phone access.

Animal Control officers have taken to intimidating and threatening people involved or in some cases even just interested in Noah's Ark. Many other people are afraid to speak up because they fear reprisals against themselves or their pets. They are right to be fearful. Long Beach has no review mechanism for this group of people who want to be law enforcement officers but dont' have what it takes; so, they are left bullying pet owners and innocent animals, all with the city's quiet nod of approval. This is not the kind of community any of us wants to live in. If we wanted to live in a city-funded state of terrorism, or if any of us thought that a prison-state was idyllic -- we wouldn't be Americans. And yet, the city of Long Beach struggles to cover it's growing un-American employees' actions.

We encourage all of you who were ready to go to the dog show in protest to instead call AKC and ask them to support our demand that the animals be released. We encourage you to stress that an 80% kill rate at a "no-kill shelter" makes a mockery of the demands of AKC to lift the city's breeding ban. Now AKC is part of the problem in Long Beach that results in mounds of dead animals who are needlessly killed. By holding Noah's Ark's animals hostage, LBAC contributes to the problem of needless deaths because they have no place to house other pets. Los Angeles Animal Services has asked for the animals to be released to them REPEATEDLY. They have received nothing but deafening silence from Long Beach's authorities.

LBAC has unplugged it's phones, it's fax machine and refuses to return phone calls for days on end. The City Attorney has provided us public records that are incomplete and audio tapes that are garbled and useless. They have dragged their feet to avoid supplying us the documents that are taxpayer paid-for records of hearings and court proceedings. They continue to stonewall Councilman DeLong's office at every turn.

Animal Control lead by Wesley Moore and Michelle S. Quigley have no desire to set any of the animals free or give them a chance at life; to do so only shows that they were WRONG in the extreme about these animals. It is ONLY because of constant public scrutiny through phone calls and visits, and attention from Councilman De Long's office (we wonder what happened to Mayor Foster in all of this????) that they have been unable to crank up their massive killing machine and begin the wholesale slaughter of our animals.

Is this the city you want to live in? Is this the way you want your employees (they are paid by your tax dollars) to be accountable to you? How much are you willing to put up with? How many animals must be killed in order for this city to finally do something? It's up to all of us to demand change!