Over the past few years, in this rural community where I now reside, I have had several similar encounters with police officials who refused to do their duty with the excuse that they were either “too busy” with more important matters (i.e. fighting drug traffic) or that they had “no authority” to take the action required in a given situation. Mostly, as I have surmised, they simply don’t wish to be bothered with the issues that I bring to their attention – namely, cases of animal abuse and neglect.

It isn’t that I drive around, “policing” the neighborhood, looking for such cases, but when I do see cases of extreme abuse, which is fairly often, I find it impossible to ignore them. There are virtually no laws here protecting animals, and there is no official police organization designated to attend to these matters. There is just one man, employed jointly by two counties (an area covering 2,000 square miles), whose job it is to attend only to cases involving large livestock (horses, cattle, etc.). As a result of this and the fact that people here often tend to think so little of the animals they own, cases of extreme abuse and neglect are rampant.

Over the past few years, I have been in several situations where I found myself face-to-face with police officers and sheriff’s deputies who flatly refused to take any action at all. Even when there are no laws in place, I know that their badge alone gives them the authority to at least make “strong suggestions” to the owners regarding the treatment of these animals. But these police officials would rather simply turn their backs. In response to their ambivalence, and in recognition of the fact that I am “no one important” (and a woman, in addition to that), I have learned to be highly manipulative. There is always a way to find power – a button that can be pushed, if you look for it – even when you are in a position of apparent powerlessness.

In one case, I called an official’s wife and pled my case after he refused to take action. The very next day the starving horses, about which I had been complaining, were seized by the police. In a similar case, with a herd of Longhorn cattle, I had been trying for several weeks to get the authorities to take action, but to no avail. Then, by chance, I saw the chief deputy in church. Until then, I didn’t know who he was, and he didn’t know me either, but as soon as the service was over, I went up to him and brought the situation to his attention. Within thirty minutes, a large stock trailer and several police cars were parked in the owner’s driveway. The cattle that were healthy enough to make it into the trailer were taken away. The others were attended by a vet and later removed. In another case, I went to a person’s house to inquire about a dog that was being abused. Apparently because I was, as Paulo says, “confident of what I was doing,” the man who owned the dog mistook me for a plain-clothed police officer and voluntarily surrendered the dog. He seemed to be afraid that I was going to arrest him if he didn’t cooperate. I didn’t claim to be a police officer, but I didn’t correct the man’s mistake either. I just took the dog and left. In yet another case, when I was sitting, parked, in the driveway of a house where a dog was being abused, I called the police to come and do something about it. I was told that they only handled cases where there was abuse or violence concerning persons. So, in response, I told them that, if they didn’t come immediately, there was going to be violence between persons. Of course, my threat was completely false – I had no intention of causing any violence. In fact, I was afraid to even get out of my car because I knew that the house I was sitting in front of was a notorious drug house and that the inhabitants were potentially dangerous. (In fact, after it was over, I got a phone call from a woman, threatening to kill me if I ever set foot on her property again.) Nonetheless, the police arrived within minutes of my call. They seemed very disgusted with me, to say the least, but they did take action, and that is all that matters.

I’m not saying any of this to make myself seem like a “hero” in any sense. (The times I have failed have far outnumbered the times I have succeeded.) The reason I’m relating these stories and in such detail is just to illustrate that, as Paulo says, one person CAN make a difference, even when that individual is of no importance. Authority is not just a police badge; it isn’t even restricted to people in positions of fame and fortune. “Everyone is an authority, when s/he is convinced of what s/he is doing.” The most effective authority comes from within. It is like a beacon that is lit by the steadfast conviction that what you are doing is RIGHT, and that it MUST BE DONE.

I gently kicked the body to see if dead or alive. It was alive.

What to do now? I did not dare bend down to make further examination, for fear the man would slit my throat. I was near a hotel and got the hotel security to call the police.

Maybe I should have done more, but at the time I could not see what more I could have done.

And it does not take much more than to show someone does care, for the world to react. But then why does it seem so hard to actually react, and not just keep passing by like we always do, when such a gesture can save a life?

An unselfish, sincere heart is so precious.

Love to All, Jane : ) xo

Love and Power. (Really makes the world go round.)

We all should have a certain level of responsibility for the well being of our neighbor. Otherwise we can become ignorant animals and we will end up destroying everything, our neighbors, our homes, ourselves and the planet. But obviously, this is a hard concept for us to grasp and I blame it on the structure of our society. Seems like everyone’s in it for the kill, for the money. It’s the model we follow, that it’s cool to lie, cheat, steal, as long as we ‘make it’ in the end. It is this attitude that will destroy us.

When I read this story, I remembered something which happened to me not long ago. I was in West Hollywood having a drink with a friend of mine when a third person came and sat near us and started chatting. He went on forever… talked and talked and mind you, he wasn’t saying anything interesting, just blabbering about Hollywood, and who he knows, what he’s done this and that, he was a radio host. I got so fed up that I decided to take a walk around the corner. I left the table and took a walk through the parking lot to the street. Just as I got to the street, I saw a homeless man sleeping on the floor. He had a thin blanket covering him, he had his feet and head tucked inside the blanket, so I couldn’t see his face. I looked at him and thought how awful it must be to be sleeping like this on the floor every night, in the cold. I wondered what a happy man he would be if he had a warm place to sleep tonight, and I thought that it must be a long time since someone has touched him, that he has felt the touch of another human being, and I wanted to give him a hug. As I bent down to hug him, as soon as I touched his blanket, and i was already on the floor, he very quickly extending his hands and started punching the air, and he got me, he hit me, but it wasn’t so bad… He got Really scared, he thought someone was attacking him and just right at that moment, I mean exactly at that moment, while he was still throwing punches, a police car drove by and stopped. Well, this would have probably been a first, where a homeless was complaining about a civilian… i just put my hands up and I said I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to hurt him, and I walked away. I walked a few feet just to the end of the street when the police caught up with me. I guess they had stayed behind and were wondering what had happened. Anyways, they stopped and asked me what happened and what I was doing walking all by myself at night and so on and so forth. I told them about The Experimental Witch so they wouldn’t think I’m ‘crazy’ and we ended up talking for a good half an hour. In the beginning I told them straight out that most people don’t like the police.. I said, ‘most people say ‘f&*% the police’ they were very defensive and on guard, specially when I said that, they were really offended, but after a while, they became really friendly and calm and they were even very cool. They said that it’s their job to protect the people, that if it wasn’t for them, who would protect us, and the argument was the protection over feeling a sense of self-righteousness and control over someone’s life. We had an interesting conversation and one of them said that he used to be traveler and what not. Moral of the story? I don’t have one, I just remembered it reading this story, but if I were to extract one it would be that everyone can be seen as a threat and an enemy until we get to know them.

Love,
C.

I used the google translator, hope it makes sense! :)

Parimat,
Liina

En rentrant,j’ai reflechi sur les trois lecons de ma marche.
a) N’importe qui peut arreter une action et s’en laver les mains, si il ou elle pense qu’avancer lui donnera des problemes.
b) Mais il y aura toujours quelqu’un qui dira “maintenant tu as commence, vas jusqu’au bout.
et finalement
c) Tout le monde est une autorite, lorsqu’il est convaincu de ce qu’il fait.”
Paulo Coelho

Thank you for sharing so very nice ideas..We admire you and your posts….. :) ..!!