The Texas Rangers have officially opened up an investigation into the Marlin Animal Shelter, after multiple dogs were found starved and deceased at the city-run facility in early January.
Members of the Justice for Marlin Dogs advocacy group have protested every week for five months at the Falls County Courthouse, calling for the arrest of Police Chief James Hommel and former animal control officer Nicole Grams for animal cruelty and tampering with evidence.
When the group was met with little response from the local government, they took their evidence to Governor Greg Abbott.
Dorothy Sanders: “You know, we've been hitting so much resistance with the city and the county. So when you know you've got the facts but you've got people telling you, ‘oh, no, that's hearsay, that's not evidence, it doesn't have enough probable cause.’ And for, you know, Governor Abbott's team and for the Texas Rangers to say ‘no, there's definitely something here.’ It's very validating.”
Dorothy Sanders is one of the main organizers of the Justice for Marlin Dogs group. She says now that the Texas Rangers are in town, the group's focus will shift toward public safety issues, as the city has still not hired a new animal control officer and the shelter remains closed.
Dorothy Sanders: “It's very frustrating because there has been, you know, increased strays, increased pack mentality. And there was a mauling here a couple weeks ago on a full grown horse. And it's sad because we told the mayor and pro-tem mayor back on February 29th that this would happen. And for them to say to our face at that meeting that, yes, you know, we hear you, but we can't do anything. We're not doing anything about it. We have no plans. The plan is that the police department is going to handle those cases. They're not. And the answer we got was, well, we can't make Chief Hommel do his job. And so meeting that kind of resistance and them, you know, not hearing us, not wanting to hear us is very frustrating because we would hate for a child or someone to, you know, get hurt or lose their life that could have been 100% preventable.”
Frances Fisher, co-founder of Journey Home Rescue, a foster based dog rescue and a member of the Justice for Marlin Dogs group, says Chief Hommel refuses to acknowledge the problem.
Frances Fisher: “So with the dispatch logs, we have proven there's numerous, numerous stray calls, aggressive dogs, dead dogs, all kinds of calls of the dogs from January ten to present that have not been addressed through the dispatch logs. But he doesn't address it in the city council meeting either.”
Marlin mayor, Susan Byrd, announced in March that the city would be hiring an independent investigator to look into Chief Hommel’s involvement with the conditions at the shelter. There have been no public updates on the investigation.
Dorothy Sanders: “We did get to sit down and talk with the investigator and he shared with me in my interview that he is a 40 plus year law enforcement officer. And I asked him, have you ever worked on an animal cruelty case yourself? He said, no. And I said, okay, well, in your 40 years of law enforcement, whether police chief or not, 40 years in your law enforcement experience, have you ever encountered where a city ran taxpayer funded animal shelter was being accused of something like this? He goes, I've never seen anything like this in my 40 plus years.”
The recent horse attack has residents concerned about public safety and the growing number of dog packs within the city. So much so that residents began a petition to recall Mayor Byrd for lack of action. Nearly 400 residents signed the petition and the city has 15 days to validate all of the signatures. If the signatures are all valid, Mayor Byrd will have to run for re-election.
KWBU has been following this story since February. Stay up to date at kwbu.org.
For 103.3 Waco Public Radio, I’m Autumn Jones.
