Paper Help vs. Tiger-fanged Punishment

.
AMMENDED
.
With regard to hoarding, Boks says:

Health care professionals recognize “animal hoarding” as a form of mental illness. A common result of this illness is that the patient is often unaware that his or her animals are suffering from medical and social neglect. Statistics suggest there is nearly a 100% recidivism rate among hoarders, which explains why the department’s good faith efforts to assist Mr. Mason failed over the past two years. Prosecution and terms of probation will hopefully provide Mr. Mason with the counseling and support he needs and put a stop to the tragic cycle of breeding and suffering occurring on his premises.

First, Boks is all wet when he says "animal hoarding" is recognized as a mental illness. In fact, the term has no legal or medical standing. It is a slur, an attempt to defame.

I am a mental health professional and have been treating and diagnosing patients sine 1987; however, I seriously misdiagnosed Boks as mentally healthy. I even worked as a psych assistant with the Sheriff's Department for a while.

For all forensic, legal and classical treatment uses, diagnoses of mental disorders are defined by the American Psychiatric Association in its 943 page "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Version IV" (DSM-IV-TR)

There is no mention of hoarding, animal hoarding, or related syndromes at all. This is just a flagrant attempt to slander a large group of people who Animal Services finds easy prey to show their power. In fact, a great many people in the rescue community might be considered "hoarders" because they might have 10 or more animals they are fostering, trying to place, etc., and they have long been terrified of raids by the department. Guerdon Stuckey was guilty of doing this several times to mainstream rescuer0critics, and Ed Boks did such a raid against former pro-Boks blogger, Mary Cummins. It is Boks' way of trying to be both a cop and a judge.

In this case, the "help" Animal Services provided consisted of giving him paper: lists of rescue organizations, vouchers, and Boks does not mention, numerous orders to comply. They refused to give him actual physical help. He asked them for nine weeks before the bust to take the kittens that he could not deal with them. They refused and gave him bottle feeding kits and told him to bring the kittens in what they were eight weeks old. Is this the "good faith" help given by the department? They couldn't get, as the ADL would say, off their lazy asses and actually do something because Boks was refusing kittens to improve his kill numbers.

The only help the rescue groups provided was TNR, not the removal and placement of cats and kittens. In fact, the kitten problem only emerged for the nine weeks prior to the bust, suggesting someone may have been dumping pregnant females at his house.

Boks goes on to say that there is almost a 100% recidivism rate among hoarders. Now, how does Ed decide to offer more compassionate but tough help to Mr Mason? Maybe the same kind of tough compassionate decision the department vet made when he killed all of the kittens?

Prosecution and terms of probation will hopefully provide Mr. Mason with the counseling and support he needs and put a stop to the tragic cycle of breeding and suffering occurring on his premises.

Prosecution and probation will provide him with the counseling and support he needs? What is this man talking about? This is insane.

Wouldn't "support" have been better provided by taking the kittens nine weeks before the bust as Mason requested, but he was told to keep them and raise them until they were eight weeks old, then he should bring them in?

Notice here that Boks considers Mason guilty until proved innocent. "Prosecution and terms of probation." In his mind, and I assume the entire legal system, Mason's guilt and punishment is a done deal.

Boks goes on to say:

The resident/suspect was booked at Devonshire Jail and after booking he was interviewed by LAPD’s System-Wide Mental Health Assessment Response Team.

Another piece of raw bull.

Mason said he was "interviewed" by a curly blond-headed man in a dress shirt and blue jeans from the other side of his cell bars. This interviewer also had a uniformed cop next to him while he was "interviewing" Mason through the bars. This sounds like they were treating Mason like Hannibal Lector..

Mason said the interview lasted five minutes. The guy (Mental Health Team) asked him questions about what Mason thought about the situation, what he thought about the kittens, and other general questions. I won't tell you Mason's responses, but he had just been arrested and cops, Animal Services and everyone else were tossing his house, garage and yard. They even rifled his cabinet drawers, I assume in a fruitless search for dope or guns to further make him look like a criminal.

This is not a psychological interview in the wildest sense. A real psych evaluation takes much or most of the day, including at least an hour of face to face with a psychologist or psychiatrist, preferably two, the administration of objective psychodiagnostic tests, such as the MMPI-2 or the MCMI-3, as well as review of medical records, personal and employment histories.

The psych evaluation Boks mentions is a joke as is any mention of good-faith "help" being provided by heavy handed legal thugs.

Boks really shouldn't have gone after Mason so publicly, because it tends to raise questions about his own hoarding of animals and the abuse they receive in the shelters with overcrowding, dog fighting, internal disease, especially the upper respiratory infections in cats and kennel cough in dogs. Boks has said both were treatable diseases, yet he killed Mason's cats because of the presence and diagnoses of untested URI.

Remember Mason's arraignment is on November 6.
.