Dear Ms. Bank,
We have been informed that you are threatening to violate the civil rights of P.J. McKosky who runs the Brooklyn-based rescue group, Empty Cages Collective. Specifically, you stated that if Mr. McKosky says anything critical about Animal Care & Control of New York City (ACC) at a January 21 conference on how to reform the troubled New York City pound system where he is a speaker/panelist, that his right to rescue animals from ACC will be rescinded. This is an illegal attempt to intimidate and silence Mr. McKosky which cannot be allowed to stand. Rescuers like Mr. McKosky are the voice of the animals and the conscience of the community. Silencing rescuers allows ACC to continue neglecting animals and killing them needlessly.
In 2007, the No Kill Advocacy Center successfully sued the County of Los Angeles for retaliating against a volunteer who publicized inhumane conditions in that facility. We are, therefore, putting you on notice that any attempt to remove Mr. McKosky’s ability to rescue animals from ACC will not be tolerated. Federal law (42 U.S.C. Section 1983) prohibits a state or municipal government to take action designed to prevent or intimidate people from exercising their First Amendment rights, or punish them for doing so, and there can be no dispute that complaining about inhumane conditions at animal shelters is a constitutionally protected right.
While New York City has claimed that ACC is an independent non-profit, federal courts have ruled that applicable civil rights laws apply to a private agency performing the function of a municipal animal shelter. In reality, however, ACC is a government agency. It was created by the Giuliani administration, has a singular mission of running animal control for the City, operates under city-owned and controlled facilities, and has a governing structure dominated by the City. While ACC was formed as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation, it is controlled by the Mayor and Health Commissioner.
As you well know, Mr. McKosky has saved countless animals that your agency intended to kill. When the ASPCA recently returned an asymptomatic cat who tested positive for Feline Leukemia to be killed at ACC, Mr. McKosky saved the cat’s life. When a small puppy contracted parvovirus and canine influenza, he saved the dog, incurring almost $9,000 in medical bills because ACC failed to keep the shelter clean, failed to protect the puppy from disease, and beyond prescribing some antibiotics, refused to treat him thereafter. When a sick, dehydrated cat needed heat support and fluids which ACC refused to provide, he saved the cat even as the cat went into shock because of lack of prompt and necessary care. In addition, as one of the few rescuers who also saves avian and other non-dog and cat species, he has rescued animals such as a chicken who was allowed to languish in pain with a fractured wing with no medical care of any kind provided at ACC. And he has tried to rescue others who died in your agency’s custody, before he could save them, because of lack of care. If these conditions existed in a private home, the individuals involved would have been subject to charges of neglect and/or animal cruelty.
Ms. Bank, ACC fails to employ basic standards of care to keep animals healthy and it fails to provide prompt and necessary veterinary care, including pain medication. The cost in animal suffering and animal lives is staggering. But in order to silence those who want to bring these practices to an end, ACC has also created a culture of fear among those who truly care about animals (the volunteers and rescuers) that if they speak out, they will be banned.
In 2010, for example, you unveiled a new volunteer policy that threatened to expel volunteers for doing so. Specifically, the policy stated that volunteers may not “publicly criticiz[e]” or cast the agency “in a negative light” without permission from ACC. It also prohibited them from “[p]osting [criticism] on any internet site such as Facebook, My Space, Craig’s List, etc.” It further stated that “[v]olunteers are prohibited from distributing their personal information, or opinions in regards [to ACC] volunteers, staff, animals, and/or policies to the public.” Those who do, the policy stated, “will be terminated.” That policy came after complaints by volunteers and others about inhumane conditions at ACC including animals wallowing in their own waste, cats and kittens going without food and water for extended periods of time, dogs not being properly socialized, ongoing killing of healthy animals, and failure to treat medical conditions.
To downplay the severity of these problems, ACC continues to deceive New York City taxpayers by falsely claiming to adopt out over 20,000 animals a year. In actuality, ACC adopts out a small percentage of that total. It is the work of organizations like Empty Cages Collective that is saving the majority of these animals. Without their intervention, ACC would have put those animals to death, as the agency threatens to do every day unless Mr. McKosky and others like him save their lives.
Yet, it appears you are willing to casually dismiss those contributions and put all the animals he saves to death if he tries to better their plight by exercising his First Amendment rights. This is not only intolerable, it also illegal.
If Julie Bank wants a fight, a fight is what we’ll give her.
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