LOS ANGELES -- A veterinary technician at a Los Angeles city animal shelter was fired last week after officials found that he had subjected dogs to inhumane treatment while euthanizing them.
Manuel Boado, 64, was discharged by the city's Civil Service Commission, which concluded that he failed to sedate the dogs he was trying to euthanize, brought dogs into a room with other dead animals and inserted euthanizing needles into jugular veins -- a practice officials say was not permitted.
With allegations reminiscent of a Stephen King novel, case records open a rare window into the most unpleasant task carried out by the Animal Services Department -- killing animals that have no owner when its shelters run out of room.
One shelter worker testified during the termination proceedings that she heard Boado tell a dog to "just die already," according to a report submitted to the commission. A second worker said he walked into Boado's work area and found two dead dogs on the floor and a third half-covered in blood.
A third employee, animal care technician Carolina Martinez, said she became sick to her stomach working alongside Boado, where animals were "struggling, shaking and urinating." She said she had to temporarily leave the room at the West Valley shelter in the Chatsworth section of Los Angeles.
"By trying to jab them with the needle, he was causing them to bleed a lot," said the report prepared for the commission. "Martinez said she had never seen so much blood before or witnessed anyone do what (Boado) did to the animals."
By failing to provide sedation, putting live animals next to dead ones and yelling, Boado needlessly created a "fear factor" among animals being euthanized, said Brenda Barnette, the department's general manager who recommended his firing.
"It is totally unconscionable to add an element of fear if you're about to take an animal's life away," she said.
Terry Porvin, Boado's lawyer, denied that his client treated animals cruelly and said he had, in fact, taken several ailing dogs from hospitals into his home. Porvin also contended that his client, who earned about $58,000 annually, never received proper training from the department in how to euthanize the animals.
Boado, who was hired in 2007, brought dogs into a room with other dead animals because the refrigerator used to store animal cadavers had been broken "for some time," Porvin said. Had Boado opened it, it would have emitted a foul stench -- a situation that would have made his work more difficult, the lawyer said.
"Out of sheer frustration from the totality of the circumstances, he probably blurted out something he shouldn't have," Porvin said.
The firing comes at a time of turmoil for the department. Barnette's agency is investigating whether employees stole dogs at a Lincoln Heights animal shelter and sold them for a profit. In recent months, the department also placed five employees on leave during a probe into allegations of time card fraud.
Barnette said she did not consider referring Boado's case to the district attorney's office for prosecution, focusing exclusively on removing him from her department. Nevertheless, the department added a line in its protocol manual barring veterinarians from inserting needles with sodium pentobarbital, the chemical used for euthanization, in the jugular vein of dogs and cats. Barnette said that she believed the manual already made the prohibition clear but that the new language makes the ban explicit.
Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com
Distributed by MCT Information Services
Comments