President Deborah Howard Appears in Interviews on TV News Stories Generated by CAPS
CAPS recently released a short documentary entitled Animal Cruelty in Kern County, California, which exposes the horrible animal cruelty epidemic in California’s third largest county (by land area).
Kern County, California has a horrible animal cruelty epidemic, with shocking crimes against animals not being investigated or prosecuted. CAPS’ emails and calls to the district attorney, the deputy DA in charge of the Rural Crimes Investigation Unit and county supervisors have gone unanswered.
In April, CAPS President Deborah Howard met with legislative directors, a chief of staff and a senate fellow for four of the five California legislators whose districts include Kern County. CAPS’ goal is to get special state funding for a desperately-needed countywide animal cruelty task force. The nonprofit will be developing a plan for this task force.
23ABC in Bakersfield interviewed CAPS President Deborah Howard while she was waiting for a flight at Los Angeles International Airport. Around 10 a.m. that morning, a Rusty’s Pizza employee had discovered a critically injured female Pit Bull with hemorrhaged eyes in the dumpster. She was panting rapidly from pain. He call Kern County Animal Control, but by the time they arrived at the pizza chain’s East Bakersfield location, the poor dog had died. Surveillance footage captured a man wrapping the dog in a blanket around 2 a.m., but the man was hard to make out.
The dumpster is behind a locked solid metal gate with barbed wire over it, so it is unknown how the dog was placed in the dumpster unless he had a key. Kern County Animal Services’ veterinarian, who does not have forensics training, alleges that the dog was hit by a car. We believe the dog was intentionally hit in the head and left to die. Kern County Animal Services claims to be investigating the crime; no one has been able to identify the man in the video.
Ms. Howard discussed CAPS’ documentary entitled Animal Cruelty in Kern County, California and how the nonprofit is using it to try to get state funding for a countywide animal cruelty task force. Melissa Hutton, a volunteer with Friends of Abandoned Dogs who appears in our documentary, took the reporter with her as she provided food and water to Kern County’s many unwanted dogs.
This story was one of a handful of ABC23 reports, generated by CAPS, on animal cruelty and abandonment in Kern County.
As part of our extensive outreach efforts around the country, CAPS uses the services of Let it Be Known Public Relations, which specializes in nonprofit accounts. John Pellegrino, the owner of the agency, is responsible for the placement of CAPS’ spay/neuter PSA on a large number of Spanish and English television and radio stations. He has also been generating media coverage for our animal cruelty and shelter documentaries and contacted the news department of Univision 21 Fresno/39 Bakersfield.
As it turns out, the Univision reporter, Jessical Bedolla, is a volunteer for Kern County Animal Services. Her comprehensive news story on animal cruelty in Kern County included interviews with Ms. Howard, who discussed the documentary and CAPS’ legislative work, and Yesenia Hernandez Giles. Ms. Hernandez Giles is a former volunteer with Friends of Abandoned Dogs who now works on her own. Ms. Bedolla went out with Ms. Hernandez Giles as she cared for the dogs. She told Ms. Bedolla that she had seem around 40 bags of dead animals just in the last half hour and thousands over the years she has been helping Kern County’s abandoned dogs.
