Videotaped statement of
former CACC Volunteer Coordinator
SANDRA BATALLA
1. When I started at the CACC in January 1997 I was hired as volunteer coordinator at the Manhattan Shelter. I was hired by the Human Resources Director, Dina Margolis after interviewing with her and Susan Kopp [Chief Veterinarian] and Marty Kurtz [Executive Director]. One of the first things they asked me was if I was involved at all with any animal activist group and I said no. They also asked me if I knew anybody who was a nut job -- that was anyone who was affiliated with any animal activist group and I said no. They asked me if I was aware of demonstrations that were held or knew anybody who was involved in them. I said no.
2. When they first hired me, Dr. Kopp and Dina sat down with me and they had told me that I was going to be sort of like a spy -- that's the word they used. I was going to try to find out for them if anybody from the inside is leaking out information to any activist groups and the way that I was supposed to do this was via the volunteer program. If I found out any member of an activist group was interested in joining, then I would try to find out if anybody was talking to them. I immediately said that that is not my style of working, but I said I was going to play it by ear.
3. I wanted to make this program work, and I had a lot of good ideas. I was given a title, an office, a phone, but the program began with absolutely no backing whatsoever from the CACC. I didn't want trouble. The simple reason is that I thought if there was any type of negative trouble for the shelter, that the animals were the ones that were going to pay the price. They gave me a list of blacklisted volunteers. This list still exists. They have it. I never kept a copy of it. Nobody ever tried to get back except for one person.
4. There were only three remaining volunteers from the past group. The rest were noted to be the nut jobs, as they said. Initially they had problems with me because they felt that I was just jumping on the bandwagon and I was going to be anti-animal or whatever. And I do believe that after a while we got to respect each other. I respected what they were doing and all I always urged them to make sure that what they were doing doesn't affect the adoptions of the animals because that's the only way they're going to get out the front door. And we had that understanding.
5. I knew what the volunteers were doing and I turned the other way. As long as I knew the animals were getting out -- that's how I treated it. And I could have lost my job many times because of that, if the managers found out.
6. I can honestly say the staff did not do everything they could to make sure all the animals there were adopted out. To me it seemed everybody was there doing their 9 to 5. There was competition and stuff that wasn't necessary.
7. The chief veterinarian, Dr. Kopp, was the one who would come in and actually become upset if she saw too many animals in the shelter -- lots of times. Every time the woman walked through the door everybody just froze because we knew she would go on a rampage. And she would literally go on a rampage. She would also go through the whole place and sign down [mark to euthanize] tons of animals. Why are they here? Why is this animal here? It's already the third day. If a stray would come in, a stray has 48 hours. If there's no known owner or if no contact was made, and no one claimed the animal after the 48 hours, the animal is supposed to be re evaluated according to policy. She would become upset if this animal came in let's say at 2:01, two days ago -- why is it 2:03 and it's still here?
8. I was told by Robin Prince who is an adoptions counselor at the CACC in Manhattan that she was told by Dr. Kopp that at least 8 or 12 animals had to go down in adoptions every night to apparently make room for incoming animals. Well not every incoming animal is adoptable and not every incoming animal was going to be eligible for adoption the next day because if it was a stray it was going to be 48 hours. So, I explained to her, why don't you go into the next room, count which animals will be coming up, which ones you think are going to make it into adoptions, then play it by ear and then you sign down the amount of animals according to that. And she said that she couldn't do it because she was told, she was given a specific number.
9. During the adopt-a-thon in May '97, a woman came in. with a dog named Max. I was at the front door and I was putting up posters and she was standing in the lobby area and I asked her if I could help her because she had a dog and we needed her out of the way because there were a lot of people looking at dogs. And she was upset. She was crying and she said, listen, I just adopted this dog the weekend prior. And I didn't think my baby was going to be allergic to the dog. My son is chronically asthmatic and she brought papers stating that her son was in the hospital with severe asthma. So we understood her dilemma and she was also very upset about it and I remember her showing me and people who were looking at her, "Look, see, he sits on command, he's a great dog, do you want him, do you want him?" She was offering him to everyone. It was like a beagle mix. And he was truly a nice dog. Very friendly and lovable. So, I remember reassuring her, which I feel bad about, but I said don't worry, he's a nice dog, I'm the volunteer coordinator here, I help out in adoptions, I'll make sure this dog gets a home. And so I remember taking the dog to Faith Elliott, who at that time was the PR director and she was shooting information shots about the CACC and the adopt-a thon and I remember asking her to feature this dog because I promised this woman that this dog would get adopted, She fell in love with him too and then she featured him and we wrote on the card -- she couldn't write it because she was told that she was not allowed to write anything on the cards -- so on the animal's kennel intake card I wrote down "do not put to sleep, PR dog" -- which meant it was an animal that was featured in a public relations somehow.
10. And then I remember coming in two days later and the dog was written off, it was crossed off. And so I wrote it again in fluorescent letters because I called Faith Elliott and I said is this dog still being featured? And she said yes, she was getting calls about him. So I did it again and I wrote it again and l told everyone again, please this dog cannot be put to sleep. There's a lot of potential adopters for it. At that time I told it to Deborah Horner and she said if I need space it doesn't matter, and Faith cannot tell her what to do. That's basically what she said. So I called Faith Elliott and I told her this. I said, Faith, we're going to have problems. She said you can't tell her. If I write PR that dog is not going to be safe. So Faith made a big deal out of it and said, "If I feature an animal, it should not be touched. At least I should be called before it happens because that way I can contact whoever is interested."
11. So when I came in, I see the Kennel person with Max, and Max is wagging his tail as he always used to do. And I said "hold it, hold it, where are you taking that dog? And he said, "I don't know, he's got to get checked up or something. I got to run him back to the medical room." So I went straight to my office and I put my stuff down and then I went to go into the medical room to see what it is they were doing, cause I figured maybe he had gotten sick, had gotten kennel cough or something, I don't know what I thought. But I know that when I walked into the room, the dog was already euthanized. He was lying on the table and he was still warm. And so I asked . . . I can't do this . . . [crying]. . .
12. It so happens that Deborah Horner was off and there was no assistant director at that time, so when she was off Mike Pastore, who was the deputy director, was the one who would cover for her. And he walked into the adoptions and signed the animal down, to be put to sleep. His initials were on the card. And so I showed it to Faith Elliott. I wanted her to see that this dog was put to sleep. I confronted Michael Pastore about the animal and I said how could you put down this dog when it was a PR dog and I thought that if I wrote PR on the card this dog would not be touched. And he explained to me that he doesn't pay attention to that. That he just goes and he just signs them down. So then I said, well look where the dog was and I showed him the empty cage. And I said, look at this dog here, this dog has been here for six days. He's growling, he's not adjusting, he's unhappy, and how could you put to sleep one that's wagging his tail and the one that's not adjusted and will obviously not be adopted is still in here? And he said that he does not look at that, that he wasn't going to waste his time going all the way to the back of the kennel and come back and sign animals like that. That he just signs them down as he goes along. So, it so happens that Max was where he just finished his quota of how many he was going to kill that day in that particular ward. And that was it. He didn't get to the one that was growling. That was what he said to me.
13. I think that was the beginning of me realizing how things were going to be there. I asked him, "How could you do it and not feel anything? How could you talk to me this way and not feel? Do you see how I feel and you don't feel that way at all?" And I looked into his eyes and he said, "yeah, I feel it sometimes." And I said, "What are you, are you a robot already? You can just do this?" Because I was really upset and I challenged him. And I think it was the first time I actually even spoke to him. And he said, "Hey, it's a job and if you can't handle it, you gotta go." And that was his attitude about it.
14. I called Faith Elliot and said how could this happen? How could he sign down this dog? And she made a big issue of it. They had a meeting about her. She didn't even know it. Dr. Kopp was on the phone with Doug Mansfield and Mike Pastore. I got wind of it because I was in the office when Michael Pastore was answering to the other person on the other end who happened to be Doug. And then Faith was considered a big troublemaker. But that's the kind of stuff we had to deal with. And this was on a daily basis. If you cared about an animal, they made it difficult to take it home.
15. If an animal is abandoned, there are guidelines to say what's considered abandoned and what's not. If it's abandoned, if the owner is in the hospital, or owner in jail, or owner arrested, they're considered [Department of Health] holding cases. This was something else we always complained about: we were given a manual for how to distinguish holding cases and how to treat them. And, that was fine. But when you did it by the book, then you would have somebody say "no, you don't do this." It was always changed on a verbal basis by [shelter manager] Denise Brown. But I don't know where she would get it from. She would say Doug [Mansfield] said or if Doug had a particular interest in a case. I'll give you an example. There was a dog that was there for over a year. And it was a cruelty case. And the dog's name was Ninja. This dog was psychotic. Going crazy. And they were giving the guy a hard time to get the dog back, for whatever reason. The dog would be sick and they didn't treat him. They would put a little blue dot by the card but I never ever saw people medicating the dog. It had upper respiratory congestion and diahrrea. And if these animals are strays and their time is almost up, if an animal on the top cage has diahrrea and that animal is killed, then the one on the bottom cage is also killed. Because they don't know if they all got infected. A large percentage of the large animals get sick. Sometimes the whole ward would be just sick. There's no ventilation.
16. When Dr. Koburn from the Department of Health comes in, we would hand him the bite cases. He answers to Ed Boyce at DOH [Vetereinary Public Health Services]. He would go and walk around and come back, sit down and he would write. And one day an animal who he signed to be put to sleep was already dead because it was found in the cage dead. And we wrote on the case "dead in cage." And he signed it down to be put to sleep because it was aggressive. And that's when I realized this man is not even going and doing it on an individual basis. So I observed him the time after that, and I questioned him, and I said, "Do you know that you signed down an animal that was dead already?" And he laughed it off. And then I said, "Do you even look at these animals? Do you automatically write aggressive because it's a pit bull?" And he goes, "As far as I'm concerned all pit bulls should be put to sleep." I saw him bang on the cage, and taunt an animal. That was his test for aggression.
17. There's no autopsies done so we never know what happened. And I can say that the last two months that I was there, almost on a daily basis we had three or four dead animals in cages. There's no investigation.
18. After a puppy I had just played with earlier in the day was found dead in its cage, I went to the vet, it was Dr. Singh, and I said, "What happened to the dog?" He said, "It was just dead in the cage, he was dead." He gives superficial care. The animal comes, he'll vaccinate it, do whatever, and next, it's just like that. I don't see any special care.
19. I remember I walked in one morning and I saw the pictures on Denise Brown's desk of a shitsu who came in as a stray with a butcher knife between his eyes, and the animal was still alive. That was the weird part. It came in at night with a typical standard butcher knife embedded all the way in. And I remember seeing this dog, and in shock that the dog was was still alive and conscious. And I asked Denise, when did this happen? Because I used to want to physically see the animals every day. And I said, "Where's this animal?" She said, 'Oh, he's in the back." The dog was in a dirty, typical cage, it wasn't even in a sterile environment, which I found strange that an animal with an open wound still being kept alive, and I said, "Did you remove it or did you put it to sleep?" I assumed they put it to sleep and she said no because there's a possible owner. And she said, "I'm not treating this dog because if the owner doesn't show up we're just going to have to put him to sleep."
20. They didn't make it a cruelty case because apparently it was a bitter divorce dispute. The husband had it and gave it to somebody else, that person stuck the knife in the dog. The husband rescued it, brought it to the shelter as a stray because he was afraid and so the tag that the dog had was still traceable to the ex-wife. And she didn't know her dog was going through all this stuff. And so she came and picked it up and took it to the hospital to have the knife removed. But, it was at CACC for two days and was in a lot of pain. It was very uncomfortable. And I remember saying, "Why don't we just treat the animal and if the woman is coming, then charge or whatever? I mean, can't you do something like that?" And Denise said, "We don't treat animals here, you know that."
21. At the CACC in Manhattan there was a large dog that was apparently hit by a car, brought in, I believe, by the police. Because he was a stray, he wasn't treated but at the same time this dog had a broken back. I remember I was walking around and I always used to touch all the animals and stuff and I didn't know because he was just lying there. I thought that he was just peacefully laying down. And when I touched him this dog howled at the top of his lungs. And I stepped back and I said oh my god something's wrong with this dog. I grabbed the card and that's when it dawned on me that this dog was hit by a car and has a broken back. At that point the dog was there for a whole day. And I remember hearing that dog howling all night long. And they said don't worry about it because he'll be put to sleep tomorrow, when his time is up. The next day, Dr. Atkinger wanted to treat the dog. Actually, Dr. Atkinger was a very good vet. That's when I learned their policy about we do not treat strays, they're going to be put to sleep anyway if nobody claims it. One time, I had a conversation with a vet, Gloria Telou, who really hated the policies there, and she stated to me that she wished that she could treat certain animals but she can't because they're strays.
22. Kittens die all the time. I don't know, for some reason the kittens. I think it has a lot to do with the temperature in that place. In the summer, it's like a sauna. And the maggots and the fleas, they literally would get all over you when you walk in because the heat that's in there, it must make them go in a frenzy. We would literally be getting them off of us to go and do a kennel walk. And when you pick up a card there are maggots all over the cards. Every day, every single day in Brooklyn, as recent as June 4th [1998].
23. Another thing they hated me about was because I would take shredded paper and put it in the cages for the small chihuahuas and the kittens, so they could have something to snuggle into. And the kennel people complained to Denise Brown that it was making it harder for them to clean the cages. And Denise Brown, in turn, told me they're having a problem with me doing that and that I shouldn't be doing it because they're coming right after me and they're taking it out anyway. They're taking out what I put in.
24. Now there's no hoses with running water in the new cages in the new wards. And there are no drains. So these guys literally take the animal out, splash buckets of water into the cage, and squeegie it out. All the stuff is on the floor now. Then they would take the next animal out, with the floor full of feces and piss and everything else, and the dog is running around in it. So, if the first dog had parvo, you've got another infected animal now. They'd put that animal back, then take a mop at the end of all their cleaning and they slop mop. They used a disinfectant but, you have to understand, I did this for a living at the park zoo in Brooklyn. I made sure of the cleanliness of the place. Because of training and research we had to do, I made sure how not to transmit transmittable diseases and stuff like that. You don't take the same mop in the same water, that's even common sense at home. That is their cleaning procedure there.
25. In May of '98 in Brooklyn, they had visitors of some importance, it was a group of about four. And they were there to look around and everyone was at their best. And Denise Brown was actually saying good morning to people that work with her. And so we knew these people had to be influential. There's a glass door that divides adoptions now from the lobby area. And I remember seeing a sign with tape that said "Asbestos Removal." It was the area that heads into the old wards. And we looked at each other, me and this other clerk, and I said, "Asbestos removal? They're doing that now? Who's doing it?" And she didn't know either. But then when these visitors walked out and said goodbye, the sign came off.
26. Any animal I had an issue about would end up dead. It had to be out of spite. There was no other reason. Denise Brown runs a tight ship in Brooklyn and what she does is, if anything is a touchy case that she feels can be leaked out or whatever, the records are in her office locked up. The Cujo case for instance. We couldn't find anything on it. I tried to access information about that dog. And the person in charge of records in Manhattan couldn't find the records. The clerk's name is George. He took care of the woman when she initially walked in. She she saw her dog in the shelter, ID'd her dog, and when he explained the fees she said she could not do it. He told me she started debating about the fees. At that point he then said, "If you want you can speak to my supervisor," which that day was Cynthia. Cynthia then point spoke to the woman and advised her what to do. In a situation like that any supervisor is told, even the kennel people are told to go and find the dog's card or even have a foreman look for the card and make sure that that you write "Do Not PTS [put to sleep] -- possible owner will come in to speak to Ben about fees" or whatever. You have to write that down and you have to make sure it's visible on the card. It wasn't done. And it was a very big oversight.
27. Any animal that is going to be put to sleep, the card is folded. There's a questionnaire behind the card that has to be signed off. Is everything legible, it says time stamped, they have to check all of that off and they have to write PTS either a.m. or p.m. and their initials. Cujo shouldn't have been put down. Are they so idiotic at this point that if any card is folded, they're just going to grab it -- then it falls on the doctor. And the doctor is the one who makes sure and most of the time they do. Before they put an animal down they're supposed to look at the intake number on the collar, the intake number on the animal and not all the time that's done. Denise Brown put three animals to sleep that she was not supposed to in Manhattan when she was acting director there for a while. And she blamed it on a volunteer because she said the volunteer was asking her questions when she had the numbers in her head of the animals she had to put to sleep. I was there when she ran down and said oh my god, I have to call Ed Boyce. She called Ed Boyce and said, "Oh my god, Ed, I made a mistake, I put down three holding dogs that I wasn't supposed to." I guess he helped her to cover it up. I heard that end of it and then she [gestured for me to go away]. Then I asked her, what volunteer, because you mentioned volunteer and she said, "Eve Stein." She said, "She confused me." She wasn't memorizing numbers because Ed sends her a list, put down this dog, this dog, this dog, this dog. I don't know if she was trying to memorize the numbers and then go and do it. But I never saw her do that before. I always saw her take the paper with her and go look for the animal.
28. They said Cujo was vicious. Deemed aggressive. He wasn't an aggressive dog at all according to the owner. He was probably scared of the cage. I could never understand how you can evaluate an animal as being aggressive out of one meeting that you have with the animal. Because they're not given enough time. Their tests are when you put the rope around it, did it growl? Oop, aggressive, stickers all over the place "AGGRESSIVE." Dr. Koburn taunts them. He comes and he goes AAAAH. And the dog attacks the cage. And he writes aggressive. That's their evaluation. Believe me, that man does not handle the animals. To me, how are you supposed to evaluate an animal? You take it out, you take it to a quiet setting, you take it to a neutral setting where there's no animals barking, no distractions, and then you can say that you evaluated the animal. There is no such test. And I'm not a rocket scientist, I'm not a vet, but it's common sense.
29. It would be up to Jackie Casano to decide if she feels you should get your animal back. And if it's a pure breed, chances are you're not getting it back, especially if it's a little shihtzu or a maltese or westie or pekenese. Because she's going to make a hundred dollars out of it from the adoption fees. A hundred dollars for pure breeds and the mixed breeds were sixty. This one woman came in and turned in a dog and said her friend abandoned it. I knew that this woman was not telling the truth. And I kept throwing the guilt trip on her and I told her, "Before you sign this, remember, if you're the owner, any information you give us about this dog will help us out. Nothing is going to happen to you, the cops are not going to arrest you. You don't want the dog." And she said no, no, no and I said, can I call you back because I'm going to need information about this friend of yours. You're going to have to give me an address of where she's at. She needs to know her dog is here. When I called the woman, she started crying on the phone. And she said, can I confess something to you, that's my dog. And I want it back. So I said, sure, you're going to have to come back now and you're going to have to readopt it and you have to see if you pass for adoption because you turned in the dog under false pretenses. And there's a chance you might not get the dog back. So when the woman came the next day, I retrieved the card with her pink slip and when I went to hand it to Jackie I saw that she had already put "Do Not PTS" which meant that she saw dollar signs. So I said, "Do you have someone for this dog?" And she said, no but it's a pure breed pekenese, I'm sure I won't have a hard time. So I said, the owner is here. And she said, oh, she's not going to get it back. And I said, why not, she wants her dog back. She made a mistake. That happens. And she said, oh no, she's not getting it back. I already have somebody very good that I've already called and they're coming for the dog. So she denied the woman the dog. The woman came with her husband and he was willing to pay whatever. He wanted the dog back. She came looking for me because she said that because of me she felt so guilty. Because I kept looking at her in the eye. And I said, "You know, if this is your dog,"the dog was wagging his tail and everything. I think the woman was so embarrassed, because I remember as she was walking out I said why are you so calm? They didn't give you the dog, what's the matter? You could fight this, you know. What was the reason? And she said, "She told me that I had to bring my mother and that my mother has to be brought in, everybody who lives in the house, that's too much. I just wanted the dog back." She said she lived in a three family house and that her mother lived there. Her mother's dogs were not neutered so Jackie found a reason not to give this woman back her dog.
30. I have another example. There was a black family that came in and they were looking at dogs. She fell in love with this cocker spaniel that she saw. So when she looked at it Jackie told her the dog was not up for adoption. But the woman was smart enough to question then why is it in the adoption ward. And Jackie said, well she's not up for adoption because some other people are interested in it. So as the woman is waiting and looking around and debating, another family, a white family, comes in and they're looking at the dog. So they took the dog out and they're showing the dog to this family. The first woman said, "Hold up, did you guys just come in or were you the people that were waiting for this dog?" And the woman said, "No, we just came in and he's so lovely" and so on. And the black woman got upset. And she told Jackie, "I think you're a racist because I asked you about this dog, and now these people came after me, and you're showing them the dog. And Jackie said, "Well quite frankly, you're just not cocker spaniel material." And I when heard she told the woman that, I said to the woman, "Here's the address to Park Place. I suggest you write a very strong letter about that." I don't know if she did.
31. I can tell you right now there were too many instances where if Jackie didn't like you, you wouldn't get the dog. Or, if you were the wrong color, you couldn't get a specific type of dog. It just happened too many times. And if you were black and you wanted a cat, you must have a mouse problem. That's why you want it. You gotta have a mouse problem. I would hear her doing the screening You're not supposed to want a cat for mice. Never mind that you're going to feed the cat, take care of it, or whatever, but if there's mice in your house, then you can't have cats. "Let's BL him, that's it he can't have it because he has mice. Your reference said you have mice in your house." BL is black list. And that's how she operates. And I've seen this woman, she's a master. She had the final decision, because she and Denise were the best of friends.
32. Manhattan was more lenient I think at that time. I don't know how they are now. I'll tell you right now I was very happy working in Manhattan when it came to that because the director at that time, Ben Gill, kind of let me do my thing. He basically felt if you were going to get it out of here, you had somebody for it, then do it. That was his attitude, so I was able to work with him comfortably. And when we clashed, we talked about it and we found a solution and we have respect for one another. And I enjoyed that end of it. And it wasn't that he was special in any way, it's just that that's the kind of relationship we had.
33. I think they run the place like the gestapo. If you're seen talking to the wrong person, you're on the hit list. I was never given a chance to learn. They never trained me for what I was supposed to do: chief clerk. They never trained me, ever. They sat down with me, ran something by me real quick. And I complained to human resources many times, I complained about the lack of training, how they were not teaching me how to do this job, and I wanted, and needed to learn in order to do it effectively. I complained to Mike Pastore because Denise told me outwardly, "He told me he likes you like a friend and so your shit doesn't stink," and all this crazy stuff. She didn't like me because she thought that he and I were friends when we were not. He just had respect for me and he knew that I was very verbal. That's one thing.
34. When Dina [Margolis, human resources director] came that morning to fire me, she just told me there were so many deficiencies. And I said where. And she said well, there are just too many deficiencies and you and Denise are just not getting along. It's just not happening. That morning when I got there I already knew because Denise had already spread the rumor that she was going to get me fired. So I already knew so I had my all my stuff at home and packed. I had nothing there at that time. So I said, well fine and she said, "Do you need to pack anything? I said, no everything is already at home because I already knew about this. Her concern at that point was not even anything about me, it was, how did you know? Who leaked this out? And I said, well Denise did. And then she said, but, you know, let me tell you in a high note, we are going to give you unemployment and if you sign a severance pay release... And I said, a severance pay release? What is that? I never heard of that. And she said, it's just a little document you sign and in turn we'll give you your severance pay, which we don't have to. And we won't bad mouth you and you don't bad mouth us. And that's when I told her that technically you can't bad mouth me because that is illegal. And before I use anyplace as a reference, I always have an insider call so if anybody bad mouths me there's going to be problems. And she said, well, if you sign the release you can't do that. And that's when I knew I was in big trouble. They sent it to me. There were three calls after that from Dina Margolis. Once she called "just to see how you're doing. Oh, by the way, did you sign the release?" The second one was "you're paycheck is being mailed, uuup -- did you sign the release?" And the third one was, "uh, we didn't find the t-shirts -- did you sign the release?" I said, "I sent it back to you," but I didn't. They only paid me for the days I actually worked. They fired me in the middle of the pay period. So they paid me just up to that.