Just as it is vital to consider the specifics in this case, so must we maintain a broader perspective as well as to the legal standing of (these) animals. Had I murdered them for food or in the name of religious practice, there would be no complaint against me. By law animals are considered and treated as property, laws which I am fully cognizant of in my fifteen years of animal rights and rescue work. I can torture them in the name of science, kill them in the name of nuisance and be operating within the law.
But to care for them inside my private residence where they never went outside, having no complaints from any neighbors or the many people who testified as to actually having been frequently inside my home, with hundreds of pounds of high quality cat food, more than adequate water and litter facilities and spending thousands of dollars taking them to the best vets available, I am severely penalized.
A rogue power hungry glorified dog catcher is given the carte blanche authority to solicit unsworn entirely hearsay statements from disgruntled, thieving ex-volunteers of my non-profit organization. Then, purposefully reworking these statements to make the situation appear as though these people who had never been to my house were there regularly and witnessed these contrived allegations, presented a carefully orchestrated & completely false impression to the magistrate. He purposefully does not conduct a proper investigation and has been caught on record repeatedly lying & displaying his blatant disregard for the facts, the truth, and the law. Yet the Connecticut Court has repeatedly used the same tactics and manipulation, selectively disregarding all important evidence, expert and eyewitness testimony of benefit to my case while giving undue weight to all (despite most being erroneous, completely false, utterly ridiculous, medically impossible and unsubstantiated) those of the prosecution.
The reason they were able to do this is the vagueness of the statute. As I was told by the commissioner of the CT DOA himself…"the standards are whatever we say they are, and if we decide we are after you, it does not matter what you do or have, it won’t be good enough just cause we say so. We don’t have to tell you why or how. It may be fine for the guy down the street or every other person in the state, but not you. We can say whatever we want. The law gives us the power. We are God, you are nothing more than a bug under foot we crush when and we feel like it, there is nothing you can do. The law is whatever we say."
I reported dozens of the most extreme brutal cruelty situations encountered in my animal rescue work to the Connecticut Department of Agriculture. Despite my repeatedly providing the information the needed, more than ample evidence to prompt investigation, no action was ever taken to protect any of those animals. As a result I stepped in and saved as many of those animals as I could myself and nursed them back to health from the brink of death. I was told by the head of the Department when I complained about Mr. Gregan’s lack of response that I would become an “example.” They made good on their threat at the first opportunity.
This is the unfortunate consequence of authority being given unrestricted power as the result of a vague statute. This is far from an isolated incident. Obeying the law and trying to do everything right and staying low key will not save you. Do something now to help establish the scope of the laws to limit their misapplication by the enforcement abusing their power before YOU or someone you care about is the next victim on their hit list.
