For Immediate Release
Los Angeles – In an anonymous communique received by the North American Animal Liberation Press Office (NAALPO), underground activists have again taken the struggle against the killing of adoptable companion animals to Los Angeles city officials, this time involving Jimmy Blackman. Blackman is deputy to Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and is one of the mayor’s officials overseeing the six Los Angeles Animal Shelters.
The communiques reads:
” On Dec. 30th we decorated Jimmy Blackmans parents front porch at 7851 Kenyon Avenue in LA with red paint and glued their locks. This action was done to bring attention to the blood being spilled because of their son Jimmy. Obviously Samuel and Jing Ying haven’t taught their son anything about accountability and consequenses; so we thought we would. As long as Mr Boks is head of the shelters, its not safe to be an animal at the shelters and its not safe to be Jimmy or his family members. –ALF ”
Since 2004 local activists in LA have been focused on exposing the mismanaged and corrupt department of Los Angeles Animal Services (LAAS). Activists complain that the Mayor’s office refuses to hire experts to evaluate the shelter system and implement No-Kill policies, programs, and protocols proven to stop the killing of thousands of healthy, treatable animals as is being done in other municipal shelters throughout the nation.
Pamelyn Ferdin, an activist with Animal Defense League-LA, one of the groups involved with the campaign to stop the killing, explains: “Mayor Villaraigosa and his staff appointed Ed Boks to be general manager of the Department of Los Angeles Animal services. Boks is an incompetent man who was not only asked to leave as director of the shelter system in Arizona but then was fired from the New York City shelter system. Animals in our city are being killed needlessly because the Mayor and his staff refuse to hire individuals with the skills and knowledge to implement the No Kill Equation here in Los Angeles. I think the humane community seem to be saying, ‘Enough is enough, we’re not going to take it anymore.’ It’s too bad it takes illegal direct action by groups such as the ALF to get the media to take notice of the senseless slaughter going on inside the six city animal Death Camps under the corrupt leadership of Ed Boks.”