WINONA – Public outrage over the methods used to destroy and dispose of several stray dogs at the Winona Animal Shelter last week has city leaders revisiting its policies used for animal control.
On March 8, four dogs housed at the shelter were shot by the city’s animal control officer and disposed of in a public-access trash bin near the city barn off Union Avenue. Local animal rights activists were contacted by a citizen and began an investigation into the incident.
Doll Stanley, senior campaigner for the Justice for Animals Campaign under international animal rights organization In Defense of Animals, said she was contacted by someone who claimed to witness Winona’s animal control officer, Vidal Anderson, take four dogs behind the city’s sewer treatment plant on Stafford Wells Road and shoot them.
Stanley and Carol Griffin, president of Winona Animal Advocacy Group (WAAG), were informed the dogs’ remains were dumped in the public-access trash bin near the animal shelter. The two searched the trash bin and discovered the remains inside black trash bags. Stanley said they opened two of the bags and took photographs of the bodies.
Stanley said she delivered the photos along with a letter to Mayor Aaron Dees and City Attorney Adam Kirk.
“Euthanasia is not the issue here,” Stanley said. “It is that they were shot.”
Griffin said, “Anytime you harm a child or an animal, you are going to have public outcry. People are enraged, and I am, too.”
Dees said the animals were put down according to Mississippi Code 41-53-11, which states that it is lawful for law enforcement officers to kill any dog running at-large above the age of 3 months that has been impounded by an official facility for at least five days.
He said the dogs that were destroyed had been housed at the Winona Animal Shelter since Dec. 20 and were exhibiting signs of illness.
“Some stuff that has been put out there (on social media) is just rumor,” Dees said.
On March 7, according to Dees, the Winona Board of Aldermen unanimously voted to move animal control under the umbrella of the Winona Police Department. Previously, it had been a separate department under the mayor’s supervision. At that same meeting, the board hired Anderson as a full-time animal control officer.
Anderson is the son-in-law of Dees.
The next day, when Anderson began his employment for the city, six dogs were being housed at the shelter. Dees said Anderson followed the instruction of his supervisor, Chief of Police Roshaun Daniels, and destroyed the four dogs that were sick. The other two dogs were rehomed.
Daniels “was going by the law, and he gave the order to put down the animals,” Dees said.
Disposing of the animals in the trash bin was a mistake that Anderson made as an unexperienced employee on his first day, Dees said. Once the error was discovered, Anderson retrieved the dogs’ remains, and they were properly buried, according to Dees.
“The way they were disposed of in the beginning was wrong, and (Anderson) has been reprimanded,” Dees said.
The first-term mayor said that destroying impounded animals by shooting them has been used “for years” in the city, mainly due to veterinary costs of more than $80 per animal for injection euthanasia. However, after meeting with Stanley, Griffin and other members of WAAG, the city has agreed to change its policy to only use injection euthanasia facilitated by veterinary personnel. This, according to Griffin, was how animals were put down under former animal control officers.
The Board of Aldermen will have to approve a return to the previous policy.
Daniel said he supports the change.
“If I have to fund it with money out of the Police Department budget, that is what I will do.”
Daniels had supervised the city’s animal control in the past, and he said he had agreed to resume the responsibility after recently learning that the dogs housed at the shelter were not being fed and watered properly and the pens were not being cleaned on a daily basis. When a previous animal control officer resigned, the city was without an animal control officer for two weeks, and Daniels arranged for inmates from the Carroll Montgomery Regional Correctional Facility to feed and water the animals and clean their pens every morning.
“I told the mayor that I would take it back because it was running smoothly while under the Police Department,” Daniels said. “No one really cared about the shelter, and that is when I took over.”
The police chief said he visited the shelter on March 6 and noticed that four of the dogs were exhibiting signs of parvovirus, a deadly infection that can easily be spread to other dogs.
He said he feared the other dogs at the shelter would contract the illness and made the call to put the sick dogs down. Daniels said since he was appointed chief of police in July 2021 and before he was tasked with oversight of animal control, he was asked on several occasions by the acting animal control officer to have an officer put an animal down by shooting it.
“This is how it was handled,” Daniels said.
Due to space and resources, the city cannot house stray dogs indefinitely, according to Daniels. The current shelter only has six dog runs. Dogs not claimed by their owners can be adopted for a fee of $25.
The Winona Animal Shelter “has never been a rescue shelter, but we have adopted a lot of animals out of there,” he said.
State law dictates that animals must be held for five days before they are destroyed, but Winona’s ordinance requires 10 days. In most cases, dogs are held for much longer.
Daniels said he is working on a new animal control policy for the city, with plans to present it to the Board of Aldermen at its March 21 meeting.
The police chief said he has approached the Board of Aldermen previously about moving the shelter to another location; however, the city did not have the funds to rebuild the shelter. He said he is actively seeking grant funding.
“The last thing I want is for people to think I’m that cold-hearted that I would just kill dogs,” Daniels said. “If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have anything to do with animal control, but dog fights and dog bites and that kind of thing affects the Police Department. I took it over to make a change.”
Griffin said after meeting with Daniels and Dees, members of WAAG aren’t ready to commit to a partnership with the city.
“We will have to see how this plays out,” she said.
In the past, according to Griffin, WAAG has raised funds to assist in caring for the animals housed at the shelter. WAAG has funded vaccinations, heartworm testing and treatment, and spay and neutering to prepare the animals for transport to other states for adoption. Due to the recent instability in the animal control position, though, it hasn’t been possible for the organization to work with the city, Griffin said.
“WAAG is interested in the benefit of the dogs. It is about the benefit of the animals.”
Dees said a Facebook page for Winona Animal Control has been created to spread the word about animals being housed in the shelter. Photographs of each animal, the location they were picked up by the animal control officer, and contact information are posted on the page to notify pet owners of their missing dog’s location or the availability of animals up for adoption.
