In the felony trial that began yesterday of Tyrone McGill — the former manager of Dallas’ city animal shelter, where a cat was allowed to die trapped inside a wall last year — the defense is taking this tack with prosecution witnesses who worked at the shelter under McGill: So, why didn’t you do something about the cat? The strategy if successful would tend to shift blame for the animal’s death from McGill, who ran the place, to the subordinates who pleaded with him to take care of the situation. Which is, well, an interesting theory of management accountability.
Tuesday’s testimony also revealed that when the cat was finally pulled out of the wall, dead and badly decomposing after being trapped for 15 days, its nails were worn down completely from clawing to escape.
While details like that are heartbreaking, what also continues to rile animal-activist observers like Jonnie England is that McGill has been on “paid administrative leave” — in other words, drawing his $66,122 annual city paycheck for doing nothing — ever since being indicted on the animal-cruelty charge 15 months ago. “If a police officer is indicted on a felony, he’s put on unpaid leave,” England says. She adds that McGill’s treatment, by contrast, is “unbelievably outrageous,” and an insult to Dallas taxpayers.
More like one of a series of insults coming out of this wretched incident.
