Press release for Junior... please share far and wide. His owner has a court date coming up, and we want a presence. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Friday, January 9, 2014 CONTACT: The Law Offices of Matthew Albert Esq. (716) 445-4119, mattalbertlaw@gmail Robin Donovan, Compassionate Citizens of WNY, 716-361-8294, Robindonovan89@gmail Kelly Lauckern, Freeze Don’t Shoot NY, 315-246-2955 Kellylauckern@msn Zachary Smith’s “Little Helpers,” serve process two days before Christmas against Lockport Police for the shooting of Smith’s dog Junior on September 27, 2014 Lockport, NY – On December 23, 2014, notices of claim were served in a unique “Christmas manner,” against the City of Lockport relating to the Cities Police Department’s shooting of an 8-year-old pit bull “Junior,” owned by South Street resident Zachary Smith, on September 27, 2014. In a video that has been viewed thousands of times on Youtube and other social media sites, process servers donned Santa outfits and made direct contact with Police Chief Lawrence Eggert, on the premise that they were to be giving Chief Eggert a “Christmas package.” Upon interacting with Eggert, the process servers, Morgan Dunbar and Robin Donovan, both of whom are members of local civil rights and animal rights groups, pulled the notices of claim out of a wrapped box and served Eggert with the paperwork while another individual filmed the incident. Eggert is individually named in the notice of claim, as are the two Officers whom shot Junior, Mike Wasik and Marshall Belling. Smith’s lawyer, animal rights attorney Matthew Albert, shed some light as to the reasoning behind the unconventional service of process. “Simply put, Chief Eggert and his department have unlawfully ignored requests for documents, withheld records, tampered with evidence, and have been playing cover up and hide the ball since they killed the dog. Serving them on a video that has now been viewed by thousands of people may have been the only way for the department to actually acknowledge service of the paperwork,” said Albert. The facts relating to the dog’s killing have been in dispute throughout the proceedings. The Police Department maintains that Junior ran through a locked gate while Belling and Wasik were investigating a call of trespassing. However, a civilian eyewitness states that the police broke the gate at a South Street residence, allowing the dog to escape the back yard he was previously inhabiting. The city subsequently charged Smith with possessing an unlicensed dog, as well as with permitting a dog to be off leash in public. That proceeding, separate although related to the lawsuit Smith plans to pursue, has already begun and will return before the Honorable Thomas Dimillo on January 26, 2015. Albert claims those charges are “trumped up,” and retaliatory in nature. “Even if one were to adopt the Police’s fraudulent version of events, how in God’s name does one permit a dog to break through a locked gate? This whole thing is a sham, and that is by far the nicest word I can use to describe these proceedings.” A coalition of both local and National animal rights groups, led by Compassionate Citizens of WNY and the National Freeze Don’t Shoot movement, stand in support of legal action in Smith’s cases as well as other instances of police killing dogs in the Buffalo Niagara region. Robin Donovan, president of Compassionate Citizens of Western New York, states that there will be a flurry of legal in the upcoming months as advocates, “are no longer just advocating… but are now here to fight.” Youtube link for service of process: https://youtube/watch?v=P6PR_rWcpoM Facebook: https://facebook/Justice4JuniorLockport * Promotional images attached *
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 06:41:54 +0000
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