Guns Taken Off Animal Services Officers: City Controller Wendy Greuel Sniffing Around For Improprieties

By Dennis Romero Thu., Aug. 4 2011 at 9:27 PM

Joe Duty

Updated at the bottom: Animal services chief Brenda Barnette responds, says this has nothing to do with Greuel's audit. First posted at 4:16 p.m.

It appears that L.A. city Animal Services officers were made to give up the weapons they use to put down threatening animals.

It isn't clear who took the guns this morning, however. The LAPD confirms to the Weekly that it took part in "raids" on the six L.A. city shelters but a spokeswoman says officers took no weapons.

Brenda Barnette, general manager of L.A. Animal Services, sent a memo to her troops telling them to give up their guns as part of a "weapons and ammunition audit." She wrote, according to the Daily News:

Please give the LAPD all handguns, rifles, shotguns and ammunition that are at your shelter.

City News Service noted that City Controller Wendy Greuel announced plans last month to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of the department, and that the department has taken some heat for recent animal thefts and alleged time-card doctoring among employees.

Today Greuel said it "had not been determined" if any of the Animal Services officers' guns are possibly stolen goods. She said in a statement sent to the media:

It's clear there are not appropriate internal controls over the use of weapons at the City's animal shelters. We need to get to the bottom of how many weapons there are, how these guns are being used and what protocols are in place to ensure public safety.

Our calls to Barnette, the only person in Animal Services authorized to speak to the press, apparently, have so far gone unreturned.

Another scandal for City Hall? Just what we need.

Update: Barnette called us back late Thursday. She says this has nothing to do with Greuel's planned audit. She said Greuel's audit was "separate" from this morning's move:

We went and got the guns from the shelter so we could do an inventory. We realized we didn't have a very good system for checking the guns in and out. So we asked the LAPD to help us. So they did.

Barnette said about 120 guns needed to be inventoried.

"You got that many guns you want to know where they are," she said. "We need some best-practices protocols."

The Animal Services honcho said calling what happened this morning "raids" would be an overstatement.

-With reporting from City News Service. Got news? Email us. Follow us on Twitter, too: @dennisjromero.

Tags:

animal control officers, animal services, animal shelter, audit, guns, LAPD, Los Angeles, Wendy Greuel

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KatManDu

The General Manager has no idea of what she is doing, the weapons are notfor domestic animals, and the weapons are only for injured wildlife that issuffering beyond any hope of recovery. Animal Services gives injured, sick andorphaned wildlife that can be helped to wildlife rehabbers. If a deer or horsehas broken 4 broken legs from being hit by a car, the humane way is to dispatchthe poor animal by firearm, The officers are highly trained in this area and gothrough more safety training then LAPD, None of them want to do this, it isjust a sad affect of wildlife injured beyond all hope. Don' believe all thehype about the guns. The GM has no wildlife experience and now animal are beingleft to die suffering since she did not put a plan in place to deal with the dyingwildlife, The rehabbers do not want wild animals that have zoonosis, missinglimbs or wings, missing beaks, broken backs, etc. So the next time the CHPcalls for help for a deer hit by a car on the freeway and you are late to workbecause there is no help for that animal, Call Barnette and tell her to talk toher officers, she has not done that and has been there a year.

KFW

You are correct, even with the typos. LAPD does not want todo that job. I saw an animal control officer crying once after having to putdown a deer hit by a taxi on the Highland off ramp of the Hollywood freeway afew years back. I was there after the incident and the office said that it wasthe sad part of the job. The deer had both rear legs broken and one of thefront legs was torn off from the impact. At first had that "You arekilling bambi" thing before I saw how bad a shape the deer was in then Irealized what had to be done, The officer said that he loved deer and that ifthere were any way to save he would. I felt bad for him. There is no amount ofpay that can wipe that memory from the mind of someone that has to perform thatduty.

Barnette is getting payola for her back door deals with Best Friends, She has history of that sort of thing. She also has never met or consulted with the City's one and only Wildlife Specialist, Officer Randall. Barnette makes policies on wildlife without even checking with the experts

TiffZ

This is definitely a disconcerting situation for all. However, the animals of Los Angeles still need lots of help. If you are looking to adopt an animal in the LA area, check out http://www.foundanimals.org/pe... , where you can search through all kinds of animals ready to be adopted.

Ick

Zero problem with animals being sold if it means they're not going to be executed. The city of LA kills thousands of strays and lost pets a year.

citizin of l.a

It really is sad to see the GM for animal service put blame on the city employees for stealing animals when they have found that most of the so-called animals that were missing were actually just clerical errors as quick as she was to contact the media with accusing innocent people she should also make a public appology. She issued volunteers (her friends) keys and full access to animals that only city employees should have been able to access and now she wants to blame them...wow the Mayor should look into the problems she has caused instead wasting city money on having employees sit at home when they can be doing there job. but instead she wants to start paying volunteers ...come on now mayor do you not see something wrong with this picture and then you wonder why the city budget is so bad...

TiffZ

Kristin C. Sabo

""You got that many guns you want to know where they are," she said. "We need some best-practices protocols.""

I've heard from Animal Services employees directly that Barnette hasn't even met with many of them. Does she even know what practices - best or otherwise - are in place? My guess is no. This is all about her perception of what is in place rather than the reality. And her perception comes from ... ? Mayor? Unions? Activists? Sounds like Barnette should work a little harder on how she practices the management part of being a General Manager.

Apples

Brenda Barnette is an absolute MENACE. No guns for Animal Services officers? Well folks, hope you never have a situation where an animal needs to be euthanized quickly in an accident or other emergency situation, because you'll have to wait until you can find a vet and then get them to come to the scene now. (Ever seen a horse hit by a car?) The animals will suffer needlessly because of this crazy <expletive> Barnette. And hopefully no Animal Services officers run into a dangerous dog situation, because they will not be able to defend themselves. GO BACK TO SEATTLE, BARNETTE, before you do permanent damage to someone here.</expletive>