Justice for Dog and Cat Owners in Aftermath of Katrina

Carol Hamm will never forget returning to Saint Bernard Parish, walking into her former senior high -- now Beauregard Middle School -- and finding her three dogs dead on the floor from gunshot wounds.

The dogs were among more than 30 found shot to death at three schools. Now, an attorney is filing a civil lawsuit on Carol’s behalf, as well as a handful of other owners, against the officers accused of either pulling the trigger or giving the order to shoot.

Eileen Comiskey, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, has two reasons for filing the suit at this point: first, it needs to be filed before the one-year statute of limitations expired; and second, she wants to make sure refugee pets are never shot again.

The suit -- for breach of contract, negligent conduct, negligent monitoring of officers and failure to control officers, and negligent destruction of property -- is expected to be filed Tuesday, September 12, in Saint Bernard Parish Court.

“The bottom line is the dogs died, and somebody was ordered to shoot them,” Comiskey said.

Sheriff Jack Stephens, who is named in the suit along with one deputy and several other unnamed deputies, in an interview with CNN late last year admitted it was possible one or more of his own deputies might have shot the animals. The order to shoot, witnesses have said, came from higher ups within the Saint Bernard Sheriff’s Department, although Stephens has denied issuing the order himself.

Meanwhile, the Lousiana Attorney General’s office opened its own investigation after the sheriff turned the case over to the state. But as of last month discussions were ongoing as to which prosecuting office should handle the case, either local or at the state level. “The status right now is that we’re negotiating with the district attorney as to who’s handling it,” said Deputy District Attorney Mimi Hunley.

Pasado’s Safe Haven, an animal rescue group, went into the schools last year with a representative from the attorney general’s office, removed the animals’ bodies and had necropsies done. The results, according to Pasado’s Web site, are a part of the investigation.

When the levees broke, hundreds of people living in Saint Bernard Parish -- a county in the New Orleans area -- fled in boats to neighborhood schools -- Sebastian Roy Elementary, Beauregard Middle, and Saint Bernard High. Neighbor helped neighbor, plucking each other and their pets off rooftops, out of attics and from the floodwaters.

Some stayed at the schools with their dogs and cats for just a day or two; others stayed a couple days longer. They all eventually were ordered sheriff’s deputies to get inside the back of dump trucks for a ride to a Violet ferry. From there, they were ferried to buses and eventually transported to different parts of the United States.

Hamm’s husband ended up paddling a boat and dropping off their four dogs at Beauregard Middle School, because sheriff’s deputies told him they would take the animals to a shelter for safe keeping. “He left them in Room 203,” Hamm said, and then they boated to the high school to be evacuated out a day later. The last thing the Hamms remember was an officer promising the family they’d look after their pets.

“I went to senior high school at Beauregard,” Carol said. That’s my alma mater. I can’t go back. It’s too painful. I had happy memories from there, and now I have sad memories.”

The Hamms were evacuated to Temple, Texas, all the while trusting in the deputy’s word that their dogs were being looked after. Then they got word from a family member that dogs and cats were shot at the schools.

The Hamms returned in late September and headed for the middle school on Saint Bernard Highway. There, in the same room her husband had left them, they found the bodies of three of their dogs: Bullet, a Husky mix; Honey, a five-month-old Pit Bull puppy; and Angel Girl, a black Lab mix.

“Bullet, Honey and Angel Girl were still tied up when they were shot,” she said. “The way Bullet was laying, he was on his side. I think he was sleeping when he was shot. Angel Girl was curled up the way she always slept, so I think she was sleeping too. Angel Girl looked like she just collapsed when she was shot.”

Their fourth dog, Daisy, a now five-year-old Chihuahua and Dachshund mix, was missing. She had been living with the Hamms for a year, but before that was Carol’s mother-in-law’s dog. When her mother-in-law, Mary Hamm, went into a rest home, Carol and her husband took Daisy in as their own.

But last November, Best Friends rescued Daisy from a street near Beauregard and took her to the Tylertown relief center. From there, she was fostered in a private home in the midwest. “Daisy’s our miracle dog,” Carol said.

Besides Daisy, some other dogs left in the school also were not shot. A Best Friends team rescued Angel -- a pit bull whose real name turned out to be Sassy -- from the roof of the high school. She was later reunited with her family to a FEMA trailer.

Mercedes, a black pit bull, was spared after her leash got stuck in a drawer and she was trapped behind a cabinet inside Beauregard Middle School. She too ended up at the Tylertown relief center and was eventually reunited with her family, the Acostas. A German Sheperd, owned by the father of Mercedes’ family, was somehow able to escape from Beauregard. She was on her owner’s porch when he returned home.

In May, Daisy was reunited with the Hamms. On their first trip back to New Orleans to visit Mary, they took Daisy with them. “Daisy had never been to the rest home before,” Carol said, “but she knew exactly where to go. She was so excited, her whole body was wiggling. She ran down the hallway and straight to my mother-in-law’s room.”

Her mother-in-law was relieved. “She cried,” Carol said. “She was happy. She couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t been eating. She was grieving for Daisy. She’d tell us, ‘Oh, my Daisy’s gone.’ We knew about the shootings, but we didn’t tell her anything.”

Since then, Mary has passed away. “I think waiting to see Daisy again kept her alive,” Carol said. “That’s what she was living for.”

What is keeping Carol going, she said, is the hope that justice will prevail. “I want to face the people who did this, number one,” she said. “And number two, I want to see justice done. We felt betrayed. The last people to see our dogs were the deputies. We trusted them, and I don’t know why they did it. They didn’t have permission to do it.”

Private attorney Comiskey is on her side. The shootings, she said, were senseless and someone needs to be held accountable. “Everybody was leaving the area,” she said. “There was no fear.

"These were poodles and friendly dogs and they weren’t all shot in the head. A lot of them were shot in the stomach or leg and they suffered. We know this was a state of emergency. We don’t want to start a war. We just want to make sure this never happens again.”

Pictured: Christopher Acosta with his dog Mercedes, who escaped being shot.

Story and photo by Cathy Scott