Whodunit? : Humane Officers Get Lesson in Building a Case

The dog was beaten to death. A neighbor had been asked to feed the dog while its owner was away, but he got mad when the dog got a little frisky. The guy didn’t like dogs anyway, so he whacked it with a broom.

Then he couldn’t stop hitting.

The scenario was fictional, acted out by employees of the San Diego Humane Society for the benefit of officers being trained in an advanced academy. The 42 hours of training are taking place this week in San Diego as part of the annual Humane Officers’ Training Academy, sponsored by the local society.

Nineteen officers from California and one from Arizona are gathering mock evidence, photographing grisly mock crimes, writing reports and filing cases for court. Friday, in El Cajon, a mock trial will be held, complete with real attorneys and a real judge.

Mock Cases

Wednesday, four mock cases were staged, which, as much as anything, gave employees of the local society a chance to try out their acting ability.

Rosemary Thorpe was so convincing as the fictional neighbor who reported seeing a strange-looking man walk out from behind the back yard that real neighbors in the Bay Ho area (where the mock case was staged) thought she was serious.

Thorpe is a reserve state humane officer who works in the local office, just a few blocks away in Mission Valley. She was assisted by Jo Ann Rezdek, a transcriber, who played a neighbor who returns to find her dog dead, and by officer Mike Runyon. With convincing sleaze, Runyon played the part of the man who committed the dastardly deed.

At one point, a group of investigators surrounded Thorpe.

“What color jeans was he wearing?” they asked her.

“Blue, I think.”

“You said he had dark hair. Was he wearing glasses? Did he have facial hair?”

‘I Saw Glasses’

“I saw glasses. I don’t remember facial hair. I heard the dog yelp just before the man walked out. I’m sure he did it.”

Runyon came walking down the street, wearing sunglasses, a brown vest and blue jeans. He had mock bloodstains on his Reebok running shoes. Agents surrounded him and started firing questions.

“Wow, the dog’s really dead?” Runyon asked.

“Do you have any problems with dogs?” an agent asked.

“Well, I don’t particularly care for dogs, but I’d never do something like this.”

Rick Johnson, a community service director for the Marin Humane Society in Marin County, was one of the teachers overseeing the course. He noted that, after spotting the blood, agents should have apprised Runyon of his rights immediately--answers to any questions asked before could not be legally admitted as evidence. Johnson said the blood on the shoes made Runyon a giveaway as a suspect.

Endel Jurman, 25, is an agent with the Pasadena Humane Society. He spotted the blood-stained broom in the back yard. The blood was, of course, fake. Fake or otherwise, in the early stages of investigation it is “nothing more than a red stain,” Jurman advised.

“It’s a red stain until it’s tested,” he noted. “That’s what we learned from a San Diego criminologist who’s here this week. You pick up the broom, so as not to disturb fingerprints, and have it tested at a crime lab. Then, maybe, you can use it as evidence.”

Felony Offense

Kim Jones, an agent in the local office, supervised Wednesday’s mock investigation. Her parents’ Bay Ho home was volunteered as the scene of the crime. Jones noted that under California law killing or maiming someone else’s animal is a felony. Killing or maiming your own animal is a misdemeanor, unless accusers can prove that the animal was tortured or abused.

Jurman was busy taking photographs--of the broom and the stains that left a trail leading from the yard to the gate near the front of the house. Photographs were necessary, he said, because “animal cruelty is a tough, tough thing to prove. Witnesses are usually neighbors who have to continue living near the suspect.”

“Animal Control officers usually don’t have the sophisticated equipment that detailed investigation demands,” Jurman said. “The San Diego Humane Society, for instance, is funded entirely by private donations. Combine these factors, and it can be hard to convince a jury.”

Like many of his colleagues searching for evidence Wednesday morning and showing that they could document it skillfully and without error, Jurman said the work of a humane society official is sometimes “frustrating--maddeningly so.” People like him usually enter the field with dual passions--love of both animals and law enforcement.

“With those kinds of interests, what other work could we do?” he said.

Recently, he tried to arrest a cock fighter. He confiscated “tons of paraphernalia” and had in his possession dozens of wounded and dead birds, but never caught the suspect in action.

“A good defense can find the holes in any case flawed by incomplete evidence,” Jurman said.

Love of Animals

Frustration is intensified, Jurman said, by an agent’s genuine love of the animals he’s trying to protect. He has several pets, including a parrot with a deformed beak. The parrot can’t feed itself, so every day of its life Jurman feeds it by hand. He found the bird battered and barely alive while making the rounds on one of his cases.

Laurie Joniaux is assistant director of the San Diego Humane Society. She said the purpose of the weeklong seminar is to sharpen investigators’ skills so that “evidence will stand in a court of law.” She said the society looks for bright young investigators who have a working knowledge of the criminal justice system, as well as being aggressive enforcers. She said cockfighting and pit-bull fighting are particular problems for agents in San Diego County.

Linda Sykes, 44, is an animal control agent in Banning, Calif. She said the work is sometimes gruesome.

“Pit-bull fights and cockfights are one thing,” she said, “but the most disgusting cases involve animals being sacrificed (by occult groups). . . .

“You run into all kinds of weird judgment calls. The other day, this woman brings in a dog that’s badly emaciated (and diseased). It was awful . I had a case there, but I declined (to arrest the woman) because she had no husband, she was broke, and her kids looked tired and more than a little sad. What good would my making trouble have done?”

Sykes said that 80% of the people she tries to educate respond in the way that she wants--they take better care of their animals.

But, sadly, and with a look of quiet resignation, she described the job as “40% PR, 40% paper work and 20% actually helping animals, which is what you want to do in the first place.”