Commission Suspends Ties to Animal Welfare Group

The Los Angeles City Animal Regulation Commission has suspended its relationship with Mercy Crusade of Van Nuys, which is the subject of state and federal investigations brought on by reports the animal welfare group bought as much as $100,000 worth of assault-style guns.

In Sacramento, meanwhile, state legislators--with encouragement from the city of Los Angeles--are moving to change state laws that authorize animal welfare groups like Mercy Crusade to name state humane officers.

It was the activities of Mercy Crusade’s chief humane officer that brought on the federal firearms investigation. Times reports of the federal probe prompted the state investigation, the city’s actions and the efforts in the state Legislature.

Under a little-known state law, humane officers are authorized to wear CHP-style uniforms, carry guns, conduct criminal investigations and make arrests. The officers, who frequently are unpaid volunteers with little formal law enforcement training, operate without government supervision.

The current system “is outrageous,” said Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood), who has introduced legislation calling for a study of the role of humane officers, as has Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar).

“To have a self-run, quasi-governmental, vigilante-type group armed to the teeth running around on behalf of animals” is not “in the best interests of the state of California,” Tucker said Thursday.

Like many others, including officials of the state Department of Justice who monitor peace officer qualifications, Tucker said he had never heard of humane officers before reading about them in The Times. There is no government agency that oversees them nor any central registry to check their identities or number, although there appear to be hundreds of them.

After being nominated by animal welfare groups, the officers are commissioned locally by county presiding judges. Court employees say the commissions are generally routinely granted after quick checks for a criminal record.

Tucker said he was shocked that humane officers are required to undergo only a 24-hour firearms training course, offered by community colleges, before being authorized to carry a gun. The state requires most other state peace officers to have a minimum of 364 hours of training, and many large local police departments require 500 hours or more, plus psychological and background checks.

“If they are in fact going to be carrying a badge and carrying a gun and doing so under the imprimatur of the state of California . . . then you need the entire (training) program,” Tucker said.

“Clearly, it is a public safety issue. . . . We don’t know who these people are, or how many humane officers are out there running around.”

Following reports in The Times that Mercy Crusade was the subject of a federal investigation into its gun purchases for humane officers, the state attorney general’s office began looking into whether the tax-exempt group improperly bought the arsenal of guns with charitable donations it received from the public to help spay and neuter pets.

In light of the state investigation, the city is suspending Mercy Crusade’s participation in all programs sponsored by the Department of Animal Regulation, including a high-profile spaying and neutering program, until the issue is resolved, according to a letter sent to Mercy Crusade on Jan. 24 by Gary S. Olsen, the department’s general manager.

He asked the group to “immediately curtail distribution” of city-funded vouchers for sterilization of pets and return them to his office. In recent years, Mercy Crusade has distributed at least 3,899 such vouchers, worth at least $20 at veterinary clinics, on behalf of the city, and recently received 500 more.

Mercy Crusade officials could not be reached for comment.

Los Angeles city officials are also “very concerned about the risks to public safety” posed by unsupervised humane officers, said Gini Barrett, president of the commission that oversees the Department of Animal Regulation.

“You shouldn’t have people in authority that aren’t accountable, especially if they have guns,” Barrett said.

In recent weeks, members of her commission and Mayor Richard Riordan’s staff have discussed whether the city could assume immediate jurisdiction over humane officers operating within city limits, she said, but determined that the best course would be to support changes to the state civil code that gives officers their authority.

“We can’t override state law,” Barrett said. “This has to be solved at the state level.”

Katz, who is married to Barrett, said he was sufficiently concerned after reading The Times’ stories about humane officers and Mercy Crusade to introduce a “spot bill” to meet a legislative deadline. Such bills are introduced to get a proposal into the legislative machinery, while lawmakers study the issue for changes to the bill later.

“I was astounded reading (the) articles,” Katz said. “I wanted to make sure the issue gets addressed this year.” Tucker also said that he immediately had his staff introduce a spot bill after reading The Times’ reports.

Tucker and Katz were referring to stories that included a report disclosing that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms opened an investigation into Mercy Crusade last summer, after San Fernando Valley gun dealers reported purchases of as much as $100,000 worth of assault-style weapons using checks drawn on Mercy Crusade accounts, in some cases just before the guns were to be restricted under pending federal gun control legislation.

Mercy Crusade’s leader and chief humane officer, Pepperdine economics professor James McCourt, has denied wrongdoing but has declined to return recent calls seeking comment on the group or its expenditures.

In prior interviews, however, McCourt told The Times and ATF agents that he bought the weapons for his 12 or so humane officers for a variety of reasons. Among them: to foster a sense of camaraderie among officers by training them with advanced weapons; to gain the respect of other law enforcement agencies, and to protect animal shelters from rioters.

After following McCourt from a gun shop to his house last June, ATF agents interviewed him and one of his uniformed humane officers, Judson Swearingen Jr., and confiscated 12 Heckler & Koch SP89 semiautomatic pistols bought for as much as $2,700 apiece, authorities said.

According to federal authorities, McCourt and his aides also have bought at least 22 other weapons, almost all of them semiautomatic versions of military assault rifles, providing more firepower than carried by most SWAT squads.

It was legal for McCourt to buy the weapons. Federal prosecutors have refused to prosecute the agents’ allegation that he gave a post office box instead of his true home or business address on weapons purchase forms, as required by federal law. But the investigation remains open, ATF agents have said, because they still want to know why an animal welfare group would want to amass such an arsenal.

Following revelation of the ATF probe, the state attorney general’s office announced it had opened an investigation into Mercy Crusade, saying it wants to know whether the group broke laws requiring charitable organizations to spend donated money on the specific purposes for which the contributions were solicited.

Mercy Crusade has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations in recent years, according to records on file with the attorney general’s office. Its solicitation literature commonly says the contributions will be used to protect animals from abuse, in part by supporting spaying and neutering programs.

Barrett said city officials are concerned that state-sponsored humane officers, such as Mercy Crusade’s, will be confused with the city’s 41 uniformed animal control officers, who work at the city’s six animal care and control centers.

Unlike humane officers, the city’s officers receive a minimum of 400 training hours before they can go into the field, and more training throughout their careers, including biannual firearms qualification tests, Olsen said.

City officers also must make a report every time they discharge their weapon stating why they did so, he said.

Nevertheless, Olsen said, the city officers have access to guns when needed but “don’t wear weapons on their person; they don’t need to.”

“I have never liked that (about the state humane officers). I have never supported humane officers needing to carry firearms in a large metropolitan area, where you have police available.”