Poor relationships hurt animal cruelty cases, DA says

A Bibb County district attorney assessment cites a poor working relationship between the Animal Welfare and sheriff’s office staffs as playing a role in mishandled animal cruelty investigations.

But Macon-Bibb County and Bibb County Sheriff’s Office officials said they were unaware of any serious conflict between the departments.

District Attorney David Cooke said Tuesday he was recently asked by some people to examine how cases were handled, which led him to send a letter to the County Commission on Monday.

That letter listed a series of barriers he said have hindered some prosecutions and includes recommendations on how to overcome them. During the last couple years, the Animal Welfare Department has “instigated” issues with the sheriff’s office with some of the tension stemming from “a lack of respect” by Animal Welfare staff, the letter said.

There were about two dozen animal welfare cases handled by the District Attorney’s Office in 2016.

At a Tuesday press conference, Cooke said some of the problems with Animal Welfare staff includes “a lack of understanding how to properly investigate and document cases for prosecution; a lack of training with respect to individual search and seizure rights under the Constitution; a lack of respect for law enforcement chain of command, and compromising the integrity of investigations by sharing evidence with the media while investigations are ongoing.”

He added, “It’s clear that the way these cases have been handled are not working.”

Among Cooke’s other recommendations are having sheriff’s office and Animal Welfare administrators come together in a “non-hostile environment” to discuss how they can better cooperate. He suggested that Animal Welfare staff use more tact before deciding to have someone arrested.

Macon-Bibb spokesman Chris Floore said that there will sometimes be differing opinions on how cases are handled when there are three sides involved: Animal Welfare, sheriff’s office and the District Attorney’s Office. Floore said Animal Welfare Director Sonja Adams was caught off-guard about Cooke’s assessment, including assertion that there was major friction between the sheriff’s office and her department.

Floore said Macon-Bibb would be “happy to sit down and talk” with the District Attorney’s Office and sheriff’s office to see if there are ways to improve animal cruelty investigations.

Sheriff David Davis said he said his staff usually gets involved with some of the more serious cases of animal neglect or abuse. There have been some animal cruelty cases that don’t end up prosecuted for a variety of reasons, but Davis said he was unaware of any serious conflict between the two departments.

“I’ve had my staff looking into if there have been any glaring issues between us and animal control and I’m not aware of any kind of conflict or friction between our (staffs),” the sheriff said Tuesday afternoon.

Davis said he is willing to work with Cooke’s office and Animal Welfare to create animal cruelty protocols. Cooke said his office is working on putting together guidelines for how those cases are handled by departments.

“I think probably my folks, the District Attorney’s Office folks, and Animal Welfare should sit down and establish protocols and maybe a check list of things that would need to be handled to make sure they get a successful prosecution,” Davis said.

The Animal Welfare Department has been a major topic of discussion among County Commission members since late February. Several times commissioners have tabled a resolution to send out requests for proposals from nonprofits interested in managing the shelter.

Under the resolution, Animal Welfare would handle investigations and pick up strays while the nonprofit would handle adoptions and some of the other services.

This story was originally published March 29, 2017 at 6:40 PM with the headline "Poor relationships hurt animal cruelty cases, DA says."