Update Friday Dec. 2: The dogs are now out, picked up by a friend of their owner.
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Nov. 30: Two black dogs are back in a cage at the county animal shelter today, and the homeless guy who cares for them is in county jail, at a cost of roughly $84 a night.
He’s accused of burglary: specifically, of hopping the fence at the shelter to spring his pets from dog jail.
He didn’t break anything, says Humboldt County Sheriff’s Sgt. Kim Thompson, (name corrected 12/2) who runs the shelter. He didn’t let any other animals out. Even the door to the kennel he forced open was undamaged. And, Thompson says, the crowded shelter didn’t really want to feed and house his dogs anyway, and was ready to work with him to reunite them.
Still, says Thompson, “I have to draw the line at we break into the sheriff’s office and steal our dogs back. My compassion ends there. That’s not the way you act in a civilized society.”
So instead, a civilized society is spending tax money to keep Chad Macias in jail at least until he’s arraigned, to pay the salary of the judge who hears his case, and to pay shelter staffers who are feeding Kemma and Tick, the German shepherd mix and kelpie mix who’ve been hanging with Macias.
How is this a good thing for Humboldt County taxpayers?
“Mine is not to get into that,” says sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Steve Knight. “The problem is, he committed a felony. You can’t break into a building. We understand it was his dogs, but … what he did qualifies for a burglary, a commercial burglary.”
Knight used to run the shelter, and he sometimes loaned people money out of his own pocket to get their dogs back. Thompson says she waited all day yesterday for a friend of Macias’ to show up and take the dogs after his burglary arrest, so he wouldn’t have to pay. But the friend never showed. Now, it will cost Macias $180 in impound fees to get Kemma and Tick back, plus $15 per dog per day for boarding fees. And if he doesn’t act by Monday, both animals could go up for adoption.
The dogs are both around 2 years old, female and relatively well-cared for, although not spayed, Thompson said. And she knows they’ve had their shots, because they’ve been in the shelter before — the last time Macias tangled with authorities, back in June. It cost him $280 to reclaim his pets that time, because he had to pay for their shots.
Knight describes Macias as a transient who “hangs around the Arcata area quite a bit.” Arcata police say their latest encounter with him was last weekend, when they were called to a disturbance and ended up arresting him on suspicion of a probation violation. He was taken into custody and his dogs to the shelter.
Macias was freed soon after, and surveillance cameras at the shelter show what happened next. During the night, Thompson says, Macias managed the scale a tall fence and open the kennel his dogs shared. Then he set each dog on top of the fence, climbed back over and called them down to him.
“Those dogs were warm and dry in this facility,” Thompson says. “We had heat on. Had he waited seven more hours, he and his dogs would have been happily reunited and none of this would have happened.”
And as for Humboldt County’s bottom line, she says, well … “as a taxpayer, now we’ve got the dogs and now we’ve got him.”
This article appears in Occupy.
If someone is going to break into a county facility, I’m happy knowing such a person is being dealt with in the legal system. I want the fact that such an individual has done illegal things in the past to be on his record, noted as convictions if he’s guilty, so that any future offenses are understood in context. And yes, I pay taxes and am a Democrat. I don’t draw an exception because the facility in question can be easily broken into without damaging stuff.
If you want to throw such a guy a bone, argue for a lenient sentence, not that he shouldn’t be held accountable at all in the first place.
Contrary to what the shelter rep says, their compassion actually stops the minute your animal is in their kennel. “Please can I have my dog back, I’m genuinely broke” gets you a blank look of disconcern. Now the guy is in jail as well as his animals on our dime…just what we all need!
The authorities need to stop having pissing contests with everybody and let this guy and his dogs go. SIMPLE AS THAT. Bring back the “serve and protect” aspect of the authorities, who only seem to excercise “serve you fines and protect the cold, apathetic letter of the law.” They’re like referee robots who only give penalties.
…and let’s be real, when they say “And if he doesn’t act by Monday, both animals could go up for adoption” really, genuinely and in all actuality means both dogs will be killed but only after suffering lonely confinement at everybody’s expense.
“I have to draw the line at we break into the sheriff’s office and steal our dogs back. My compassion ends there. That’s not the way you act in a civilized society.”
Yes, the Humboldt County Sheriffs are involved in the dispensation of violence. Any attempt at resistance will be met with severe beatings, possibly death. We will define the rules of civilization for you.
These cops are operating on such a painfully primitive level of morality that they fail to look human anymore.
Welcome to Humboldt County, 2011.
All answers have already been arrived at by anyone on any side, so there’s no need to think. Don’t harsh our mellows.
So, article author, if you interview someone and misspell both their first and last names, how can a person interpret the accuracy of the rest of the article. Ask Sgt Thompson how to spell her name at least. Also unbelievable is the commenters here that think violation of property and theft is excusable. I’ll be right over to your place to take what I want, since that’s OK with you.
A much more accurate analogy, 3:24, would be…should you lose something, you’d better hit up an ATM on your way to pick it up if the authorities found it, because their finder’s fee is more than a typical day’s pay, and they make no exceptions.
Is there anything at all Ms. Dahlberg doesn’t have hysterical opinions about, coupled with a burning need to share them with people who don’t give a shit what she thinks? How about reporting the facts and keeping your personal feelings to yourself?
Thanks 3:24 for pointing out the name error. The sergeant’s last name is now corrected, and I’ve apologized to her for getting it wrong.
Kerry-
I’m really not sure how repossession of your animals from an aggressive state is the same as stealing private property from another civilian, but hey… I don’t expect big thoughts round these parts.
Also, using spelling errors to “invalidate” an argument is pretty weak. You must be new to the internet! Welome.
I like the idea that if I commit a crime and my dog goes into someone else’s care I have the right to expect that care to be free because they belong to me. I mean they owe me that much. And if it’s 3:00 in the morning I should not have to wait until someone opens the door. I have the right to use a crowbar because it’s my stuff! And if they feed my dog or heat the room in which they sleep, that should be free too! And the water and the blankets and the medical care is something they owe me.
(btw, ‘THEY’ are the taxpayers)
Ms. Dogma,
Would you rather give the dogs free care for a day or two, so that a destitute owner can recover them, or would you rather pay the $84/day cited by the author as the cost of imprisoning the dog’s owner for his “theft.” That’s the real-world choice taxpayers are faced with.
I heard a radio report the other day about some state’s school system putting kids into the criminal justice system for such crimes as talking back to teachers, or wearing inappropriate clothing. I hadn’t realized there was a shortage of “criminals” to imprison, but that seems an excellent approach to generating more “criminals” to keep the taxpayers paying the $84/day per.
So is this particular arrest. I hope you feel safer. Otherwise, it served no purpose except ringing up the bill.
Glad my hard earned tax money is being well spent….I thought Humboldt County was more intelligent than this….
We’ll never know what would have happened if the guy had asked for his dog back. IF the guy broke into the shelter, I have no problem with him receiving the appropriate legal punishment.
I’m tired of buying cat food and seeing a homeless person walk up to the pet store counter to ask the cashier if there’s a place in town that offers free veterinary care. If it were up to me, I’d illegalize pet ownership for homeless people. If you have trouble taking care of your basic needs (gee, shelter is one of ’em), then maybe you’re not in the financial position to be feeding, sheltering and providing medical care for the animal. Everyone is fretting over the guy, but ignoring the real victim in this story. Give a damn about the dog.
7:19,
If the dogs hadn’t wanted to leave with their human, they wouldn’t have left. Dogs have teeth.