Target 32: Animal Shelter Shoots Dogs
Officials Vow To Stop Practice
HENRY COUNTY, Ky. --
The following is a transcript of John Boel's report, shown exactly
the way it appeared on NewsChannel 32 at 11 p.m., July 17, 2002.
Anchor: Henry County government vows to stop shooting dogs at its animal shelter after a disturbing videotape surfaces on the Internet. It's one of several tapes we've obtained -- shot over three months -- of atrocities at the dog pound. Now, as we get ready to air the results of a three-month investigation of Henry County's dog pound -- which also serves Trimble and Gallatin counties -- they're already vowing to make changes. We need to warn you: some of what you're about to see is disturbing.
Boel: Seven years ago it looked like a happy ending to the Henry County dog saga as animals doomed to be shot were rescued.
In response to our Target 32 investigation, NewsChannel 32 viewers donated more than $40,000 to bring the dogs to Louisville for adoption or humane euthanasia by lethal injection.
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But the problem is back. Ted Chisolm didn't know it, but hidden cameras have been watching him and his dog pound.
In May, when death-row dogs were dying in the heat -- at a locked dog pound, hidden from the public, with food and water bowls overturned.
And even just a few days ago when he filled up his endloader again with a bucket full of bullet-riddled dogs, tails still wagging, trying to get back up.
We found Ted Chisolm today and tried to talk to him about those scenes.
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Boel: I'm John Boel with NewsChannel 32.
Chisolm: I know who you are, you're on private property.
Boel: I know.
Chisolm: No comment, no comment, no comment.
Boel: You know about tonight's meeting?
Chisolm: I know all about it.
Boel: I just came to get your side of the story.
Chisolm: No comment. No comment.
Boel: Chisolm may have no comment, but there are plenty of comments at the fiscal court meeting in Henry County after an animal rights group recently put one of these videotapes on the Internet.
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(Unidentified soundbites from meeting): If you work together,
you won't have to reinvent the wheel. I will volunteer for
whatever is necessary.
Mike Crow, Concerned Resident: This is immoral and dogs deserve better than this.
Victoria King, Animal Rescue Alliance: I haven't been in Kentucky that long, just found out about it Monday, so spent all day contacting every rescuer that I could to get them out here.
Boel: And the pressure works. Fiscal Court agrees to let these people take any dogs they want from the shelter, and have the remaining dogs euthanized by lethal injection at a private vet's office. And it's putting a committee together to study a longer term solution.
Boel: But there is still support -- among elected officials -- for Ted Chisolm's conduct.
John Allgeier, county magistrate: Now you understand, those dogs down there are not bedroom dogs. They're wild old country dogs. The reason they use that thing on their neck (is because) when you get one, the others wanna get you.
Boel: We tried to ask the county judge for his reaction to what's been going on at the pound.
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Boel: Have you seen the tape?
Henry Bryant, Henry County judge executive: I've seen the tape.
Boel: Do you think that ...
Bryant: I've said I'm done. No more interviews. That's it.
Boel Continues: Shooting dogs is legal in Kentucky, but it is not considered a humane euthanasia practice by the A.V.M.A.
Animal rights groups say what you just saw is a "flagrant violation of Kentucky's anticruelty statute."
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