The woman who asked Ron if they could look inside his house was Mary Grady, the smarm-fest LAPD Public Information Director.
Unless City TV is a wholly owned subsidiary of LAPD (which wouldn't surprise me) she had no right to ask or assume permission on their behalf. How is Ron supposed to know who everybody was? How was he supposed to know the camera crew wasn't LAPD personnel?
Add to that the fact that you ask anybody to consent to ANYTHING while they're in handcuffs, particularly with a camera and lights pointing at them at the crack of dawn, and that constitutes duress.
And they're not supposed to ask him ANYTHING until his rights are read to him. But crazily enough, with all that media, no one saw Ron being read his rights, because in the excitement of all those cops and ACOs bein' on the tee-vee, they plumb forgot to read Ron his rights.
PLUS, you can't openly and continually speculate about someone's mental health (as they did before, during and after the arrest), and at the same time say that you think a person you believe is mentally impaired AND in handcuffs gave you legitimate, informed consent to do anything. They want to have it, not just both ways, but about five ways that are mutually exclusive.
God BLESS whoever put that tape on YouTube!
The funny thing is...that tape was put on YouTube (at least by the poster I saw - it may be on there more than once) as an example of "animal abuse." Of course enlightened people can look at it and easily tell that it is not an example of animal abuse at all, but some people evidently do not have 2 brain cells to rub together or do not engage the brain cells tehy have.
ReplyDeleteKelley is right. We as members of the rescue community need to try not judge so quickly in cases like Ron's.
ReplyDeleteI think part of that also stems from the fact that many of US have more cats and/or dogs than currently legally allowed in L.A., although the limit of three dogs and three cats, while it would be too much for some people, is not too much for others to take care of responsibly. Our overreaction and swift condemnation of people who "get caught" probably reflects our fear of getting caught ourselves. We tell ourselves they must have been doing something wrong, because we don't want to face the fact that, at least in Ron's case, it was purely an issue of numbers (and, ironically enough, Boks' desire to try to get us back on his side), not an issue of lack of care on Ron's part.
I've met Ron's cats. They're well-socialized, healthy and were probably happy as hell with Ron.
The video was put on youtube to show that it was a sham raid. It was not animal abuse. The city no longer airs that episode. The video on youtube was recorded live to save it.
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