Arriving at a rural property, an Arizona sheriff’s deputy approaches a group of starving dogs behind a chain-link fence. Some are sleeping, while others bark and wag their tails. The deputy lays out food and water to corral them, body-camera video shows.
Washington
Washington-Marion students making BIG impact for community's LITTLES – American Press
Washington-Marion students making BIG impact for community’s LITTLES
Published 10:06 am Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Louisiana has received a $20,000 donation from the 2023-24 Washington-Marion High School LEAD Council to help support the new food pantry located at its headquarters.
A ribbon-cutting for the food pantry was held on Monday with members of the LEAD Council giving a presentation on their project.
The LEAD (leadership, enrichment and development) Council is a partnership-based initiative instituted at Sulphur High School in 2017 by Tellurian to cultivate future leaders. In 2019, the initiative expanded to WMHS.
Each year, students are appointed to the council following an intense application and interview process. They are given a $20,000 grant and one rule, “Do good in your community.” They meet with local elected officials, non-profit organizations and business leaders to identify community needs. After determining these needs, the council develops and executes projects to mitigate them.
Council member De’Asia Batiste said she was interested in the initiative because she wanted to make a tangible difference.
“I was interested in LEAD because I felt as a teenager we are not often listened to, but I learned through this program that by being a leader, even as a teenager, I have a voice and can make an impact in the community,” she said.
After the group of 13 students met with BBBS-SWLA CEO Erin Davison, they realized the organization was a perfect fit.
“When we learned that Big Brothers Big Sisters programs have been proven to help children realize their potential and build their futures, we wanted to be a part of that,” Batiste said.
While BBBS-SWLA offers a variety of programing, the WMHS LEAD Council supported the BBBS MentorU Program, a curriculum-based mentoring group that works with children ages 12 to 16 in Calcasieu Parish who are at risk of dropping out of school.
Alongside Tellurian LEAD Coordinator Terri Bachand and WMHS Faculty Advisor Corry Allen, the council developed and led monthly dialogues for the MentorU program. Topics that were discussed include Black History Month and peer pressure.
The council also created the on-site pantry for BBBS-SWLA that will benefit MentorU students and BBBS Littles alike. The pantry will be stocked with food and hygiene items. To help support the pantry, as well as the MentorU Summer Camp program, they donated their $20,000 grant from Tellurian to the organization.
Heather Hohensee, director of government and public affairs for Tellurian, said they are impressed by WMHS council members year after year.
“The council members continue to amaze us by selecting truly worthy challenges to face and developing programs and partnerships that are making lasting differences in their community. Southwest Louisiana has some very bright leaders emerging for its future.”
Davison told the American Press that BBBS-SWLA will operate the pantry for as long as it is sustainable, especially since this is a long-term goal she has had for the organization.
“Both Tellurian and the Washington-Marion LEAD Council fulfilled a wish list item of mine, to have a food and necessities closet. My Littles and families will continue to thrive because of a simple gift of food, shampoo or water.”
The pantry will be a critical resource during the summer camp. Davis said more than 85 percent of the students who attend are from asset-limited income-constrained employed (ALICE) families.
“Most of the youth are from families working, earning wages, but are just above the federal poverty line and make too much annually to qualify for public assistance programs.”
The MentorU Big Futures Summer Academy is a five-day mini-academy centered around the “four E’s” — education, employment, enlistment and entrepreneurship. Students participate in activities about career pathways, financial literacy, positive relationships and physical fitness, to name a few.
Washington
Deputy fatally shoots seven starving, abandoned dogs
The Apache County Sheriff’s Office, which serves roughly 65,000 people, maintains that the deputy did nothing wrong that day in September. Chief Deputy Roscoe Herrera said that since the county has no animal control service, deputies have discretion to handle animal issues as they see fit. The deputy, Jarrod Toadecheenie, declined to comment.
But the incident in Adamana, Ariz. — an unincorporated community about 100 miles east of Flagstaff — has outraged local animal advocates who say that shooting the dogs was the wrong solution and that the area desperately needs to address animal hoarding and abandonment. Some residents have launched Facebook groups to try to find homes for abandoned dogs and to expose people who illegally hoard animals.
“The Apache County Sheriff’s Office won’t do anything to fix the problem,” said Teresa Schumann, founder of the nonprofit Northern Arizona Animal Search and Rescue. “Animals are dying everywhere in the county.”
Molly Ottman, executive editor of the Mountain Daily Star, first obtained the body-camera footage of the incident and shared it with The Washington Post.
The dogs who were shot were owned by a divorcing couple who had abandoned the property, Toadecheenie wrote in the incident report. He wrote that he visited the home several times over a span of three weeks after neighbors called to complain about the canines.
On the first visit, he counted 10 dogs, “all of which seemed to be in good health.” A few days later, the deputy wrote, he responded to a call that the dogs had chased a neighbor’s donkey.
Toadecheenie contacted Schumann, who said she was struggling to find new owners for the dogs when the deputy called and said he would “handle it.” Schumann said she told him the dogs may need to be euthanized if they were feral.
On Sept. 22, Schumann told Toadecheenie that she hadn’t been able to find new homes for the dogs. After telling his supervisor that he planned to shoot the dogs, the deputy bought dog food and a tray, and collected water from a fire station.
Then he went to the couple’s property, corralled the dogs with the food and water, put on headphones and began to shoot the canines, the body-camera footage shows. Toadecheenie shot one dog two additional times as it continued to move.
Two dogs ran away uninjured and hid under a shed. They were later brought to a local animal shelter by Schumann. One died of parvovirus shortly after arriving, and the other was adopted, said Brandon Smigiel, a supervisor at Holbrook Animal Care and Control.
In the incident report, Toadecheenie recommended that the couple who allegedly abandoned the dogs be charged with animal cruelty. No charges had been filed as of Friday, according to county records.
Herrera, the sheriff’s chief deputy, acknowledged that the situation had caused the community “distress.”
“This tragic decision was made under extremely difficult circumstances due to a combination of limited resources, the willful neglect and abandonment of the dogs by their original owners, and the considerable amount of time spent seeking assistance from outside resources,” he said in a statement to The Post.
In a separate statement provided to KPNX 12 News on June 6, the sheriff’s office seemed to blame a lack of funding.
“Apache County does not have an animal care and control department. In the unincorporated areas that responsibility is left up to the deputies and actions taken vary and are considered on a case-by-case basis. We do not have the infrastructure or budget to support such a department.”
Schumann, who runs the rescue nonprofit, said she never thought the deputy would shoot the animals.
“It infuriates me when the sheriff’s office says they don’t have the resources” to handle animal situations differently, she said. “There are plenty of people who are trying to help.”
The Arizona Humane Society called the situation “entirely preventable” and lamented that the sheriff’s office had not asked it for help.
“This awful incident lacked all compassion and judgement,” Jennifer Armbruster, a spokeswoman for the humane society, said in a statement. “And what is most clear is that establishing an animal care and control service in Apache County is an absolute necessity to prevent something like this from happening in the future.”
Animal hoarding is at “epidemic levels” in Arizona, creating dangerous situations, said Terri Hoffman, founder of Animal Rights Champions of Arizona. Last summer, three mixed-breed pit bulls mauled a 2-year-old Apache County girl to death. Still, Hoffman said that she wants the deputy to be held accountable and that killing abandoned dogs is not an appropriate solution to hoarding.
“I’ve been to homes where there’s over 53 dogs,” Hoffman said. “Some people hoard horses and goats out here, too. I’ve seen dogs with open wounds, severe infections. Animals are dying.”
Washington
Woman dies after dog attack, Baltimore police say
On arriving, officers “were informed” that the stray pit bulls had attacked three victims and that one, the 50-year old woman, “succumbed to her injuries,” the statement said.
No information was available about the condition of the other two victims.
Two officers fired shots, and one dog was hit, the police said.
Both dogs were seized by the police and by the city’s animal control department, the police said.
The site is a residential street, lined with many two-story rowhouses with the traditional white marble steps leading from the sidewalk to their front doors. It is in the Mondawmin neighborhood, five or six miles northwest of the Inner Harbor.
Washington
Man sentenced to over 9 years in prison after robbing Washington Square Mall stores at knifepoint
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A man was sentenced to more than nine years in prison after being convicted of robbery and other charges when he stole from multiple stores at knifepoint inside the Washington Square Mall last year.
Jesus Esteban Flores was sentenced to 109 months in prison and three years of supervised release for the crimes, the Washington County District Attorney’s Office announced on Friday.
Officials said Flores began a spree of crimes in a short period of time after he entered the Southwest Portland mall on September 17, 2023. Placing a large kitchen knife on a shoe counter, he asked a department store clerk for a pair of shoes in his size. Flores took them without paying, shoplifted a hat from an adjacent store then went outside to slip the shoes on.
He re-entered the mall, went to a different store, tried to steal multiple shirts by hiding them under his clothes, and was confronted by an employee. The employee backed off after Flores showed the person a knife in his waistband and stepped toward them. Flores verbally threatened the victim and brandished the knife in hand as he exited the store.
Soon, the security officers of the Washington Square Mall began to take action. One followed Flores throughout the mall. Noticing he was being trailed, Flores threatened the security officer, pointing his knife and making threats on their life outside a main mall entrance. The security officer backed off but other security officers watched from afar and alerted law enforcement.
What ensued was a confrontation between Flores on a bicycle and the Tigard Police Department that ultimately ended in his arrest. As the Washington County District Attorney’s Office explained in a release:
“Tigard police officers confronted the defendant as he attempted to leave the area on a bike. They identified themselves and ordered him to drop the knife. After the defendant refused multiple orders, they fired 40mm less lethal foam rounds at the defendant. Officers then seized the knife, returned the merchandise, and took the defendant to jail.”
Last week, a Washington County jury convicted Flores of two counts of first-degree robbery, two counts of unlawful use of a weapon and second-degree theft. He will serve his sentence at the Oregon Department of Corrections.
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