Mandatory spay-neuter opponents have posted a video on YouTube and the "We the People for Pets" website of Kern County Sheriff's Deputies tasering Cynthia Trapani on East Trotter Avenue in Mojave on February 27.

The video doesn't actually show the woman being tasered, though you hear what sounds like her being tasered and see Trapani lying on the ground for just over 14 minutes before a Sheriff's Deputy asks the videographer to turn the camera off, the videographer refuses and the video is cut.

The video, which is time stamped before the cut, starts up again without a time stamp when an ambulance arrives and Trapani is put inside. The ambulance arrived about 16 minutes after the tasering incident actually happened.

Trapani has been charged with assaulting an animal control officer who was on the property, with several sheriff's units, to serve a search warrant on accused animal abuser Cindy Bemis.

Trapani, a close friend of Bemis, also faces animal abuse charges, filed in October and November, that are tied to on-going investigations of Bemis' alleged animal hording operation on East Trotter.

Bemis also faces animal abuse charges in San Bernardino County.

According to Kern County Sheriffs Department Chief Deputy Christopher Speer, Trapani pushed an animal control officer inside the mobile home on the property while the officer was inspecting a puppy. Trapani then retreated into a back bedroom and was coaxed out by officers.

Trapani was taken outside and informed she was under arrest, Speer said. When the deputies attempted to handcuff her, she resisted arrest and attempted to run. A deputy ran after her for a short distance and tasered her in the back, Speer said.

She was taken to the hospital in Tehachapi where she was cleared medically, Speer said.

Trapani has been charged with felony battery on emergency personnel and resisting arrest according the Kern County Superior Court website. A hearing on the charges is scheduled in the Mojave division of superior court on April 10.

Anti-mandatory spay neuter lobbying group PetPAC leader Bill Hemby and a local officer for the California Federation of Dog Clubs will be hosting a rally at this Saturday's Kern County Kennel Club All Breed Dog Show and Obedience and Rally Trials at the Kern County Fairgrounds.

The goal — defeat Kern County's proposed mandatory spay-neuter ordinance.

Check out the rally press release and agenda attached to this post.

In the wake of all my animal control stories over the last couple weeks I've been bombared with a flood of e-mail and reams of "factual" information from both sides of this issue.

I've given all the information serious consideration in a spirit of respectful skeptisim. Most of the information I've been given is obviously biased, incomplete or manipulated.

Supporters from both sides are guilty. But, and I am speaking from a simple factual standpoint here, I am seeing more bad data from the MSN opponents.

(clue to folks out there: rabies case statistics complied by The California Department of Public Health are not valid informational tools to use to track animal intakes and euthanizations on a county by county or shelter by shelter basis over time. It's not me saying that — it's the California Department of Public Health saying that to me.)

Today's "information" was too much.

I just had to respond to this piece by mandatory spay-neuter opponent John Yates of the American Sporting Dog Alliance:

Barbarity At Animal Shelter Key To Kern County Spay/Neuter Law Debate

Yates attacks the reasoning behind my story by saying that Kern County is euthanizing so many animals not because of overpopulation but because of a barbaric practice of killing most animals as soon as they come into the shelter  and hiding the evil deeds behind a green door.

Unfortunately Mr. Yates is years late with his data. The early killing ended in 2004 by the order of a judge and the green gate was ripped out in 2005.

In one section of the article Mr. Yates states confidently:

"In 2007, 67-percent of those dogs and cats never made it through the green door to the
public part of the shelter, where adoptions and rescues are possible, and where owners can reclaim their lost pets without hindrance."

Kern County's infamous "green gate" — which the public was not allowed to pass unescorted —  was ripped out of the shelter in Dec. 2005. All that remains in its place is an open sidewalk leading to previously-closed kennels.

Mr. Yates second big information flaw is tied to a former Kern County practice of euthanizing animals before a state-mandated 96-hour "lost-dog"  hold  period had passed.

Mr. Yates has obviously researched the claims filed in the 2004 lawsuit filed against Kern County Animal Control by animal rescuer Patricia Lock, which the county lost in 2006.

But he, just as obviously, didn't find out anything about what the judge did in the lawsuit.

"ASDA learned that (Kern County kills more animals than the city of Los Angeles) because Kern County kills 67-percent to 80-percent of the animals that it takes in almost as soon as they come in the door. It kills them before people are allowed to adopt them, before rescue groups are allowed to help them, and before their owners are given the time period mandated by law to reclaim them," Yates wrote.

Mr. Yates' first factual mistake here is to assume all animals euthanized by Kern County were walked right back to the kill room when they arrived at the shelter.

Even Patricia Lock's attorney Kate Neiswender only claimed that some animals were killed before the 96 hour hold period required by state law. And Neiswender had animal-by-animal records for the county to prove her point. I looked them over.

And Yates also seems unaware of the simple fact that Kern County Superior Court Judge Gary Friedman ruled on Nov. 10, 2004 that the early killing had to stop.

I would rule out Mr. Yates' mistakes about the core facts his articles thesis is based on except for a sentence late in the piece which troubled me:

"We can only speculate about the reasons why the Board of Supervisors allowed the barbaric conditions at the shelter to continue for many years."

Note the past-tense in the sentence.

It seems Mr. Yates DID know his information was old. But he used it any way.

And this is why, no offense to the "movement" leaders on either side of this issue, I plan to get my own information about this issue in the future.

I suggest, humbly, that my readers do the same.

Sincerely,

James Burger

Californian staff writer

The beating has begun,

Sunday's stories on mandatory spay-neuter have already earned me some angry e-mails from people on both sides of the debate.

And I expect more.

But today I'm wondering something new, thanks to a blog by someone on blogspot calling themselves Paw Print City.

Paw Print asks:

"I've read an awful lot of people's comments on the Bakersfield.com blogs who profess a desire to do something. So where are you?"

I'm wondering that too. In my experience covering animal control issues in Bakersfield and Kern County since 2003, I've found that people who claim they love animals are some of the most angry, factional, cliquish folks on the planet.

It's like a religion. People tend to believe they and their friends have the ONLY way to save the animals. Anyone who doesn't agree with them is the spawn of Satan.

Yell at me all you want. You know it's true.

Why will people drop a positive discussion of how to find a solution to the taxpayer-funded animal killing in a hot minute in favor of a chance to beat each other up verbally?

What do people think? Am I wrong? Can people who love animals put aside their differences and work toward solutions?

I've NEVER heard anyone speak out against doing low-cost spay neuter clinics.

But the HOPE Animal Foundation of Fresno, which supplies cheap surgeries to anyone who will sign their animals up, may have to cut service to Kern County short because there is no local sponsor group — and people aren't showing up for the trips.

And what about our own clinic? People don't like government telling them what to do with their animals. But they blame government for not doing all the work to solve the problem. Is there a private group out there that can help open a low-cost or no-cost clinic?

Mandatory spay-neuter opponents tout "education" as the solution to animal overpopulation.

Both the city of Bakersfield and County of Kern have education programs for schools — but very little time to actually go out and visit schools. Is there a way to help them? Can the public create it's own program?

The simple fact of the matter is that animals are being killed every day here in Kern County with YOUR money. These are animals that don't have to die.

There is more than one way to solve the problem.

Why aren't we making solutions happen?

James Burger

Kern County Supervisors have triggered what will almost certainly be a firestorm of debate, recrimination, rhetoric and outright nastiness.

They have demanded that the Kern County Animal Control Commission bring them back a mandatory spay-neuter ordinance by June 10.

Check out the story here.

Mandatory spay-neuter requires all animals to be sterilized to prevent overbreeding. Such laws, including the one proposed by supervisors, provide exemptions for breeders and working animals.

But breeders and animal trainers oppose the rule passionately and agressively. They say it will not work, is unenforceable and is an invasion of their personal freedoms.

Animal advocates say the rule is the only way to prevent euthanizations powered by overpopulation that, in Kern County, resulted in taxpayers paying to kill 18,669 animals in 2007.

What do you think about mandatory spay-neuter in Kern County?

It's been three-and-a-half years since I wrote an award-winning package of stories called Throwaway Animals that chronicled the fate of thousands of animals who are killed by the taxpayers of Kern County.

The Californian printed, with the story, a photo of 55-gallon barrels of dead dogs and cats in the freezer at the Kern County Animal Control shelter on South Mt. Vernon Avenue.

That photo made some people very angry.

They called us a tabloid. They ripped us for exposing children to the shocking material. They bashed us for going for the shock value.

Well folks. Fair warning. We're doing it again. On Sunday.

(Actually the story is up on the bakersfield.com home page now)

We have to do this.

Despite studies and commissions and more money and more staff and thousands of animals rescued by loving adoptive parents and dedicated animal rescuers, the kill rates in Kern County animal shelters are climbing again.

Why?

Because this county and its citizens have done a lot to fix the symptoms of the problem but very little in the past three years to eliminate the source of the problem — animal overpopulation.

The truth is in the numbers folks.

What can we - as the people of this county - do to make sure I never have to write this story again?

Tell me.