City of New Haven, CT must step up for the deaths of 50 cats!

This petition is to show the officials envolved in the case where the town ignored complaints about cruelty and neglect of 50 cats on Quinnipiac Ave. New Haven, CT and boarded them up inside the house to starve to death, that the citizens are not going to let this go.

The city ignored 2 years worth of phone calls and e-mails that complained about abuse and neglect of an animal, and when town workers were sent to board up the house, they boarded the cats inside to let them starve to death. 50 cats were found dead, some were found face down in their food bowls, while others were found huddled up together for comfort before they died.

The town official, Rizzo, has only issued a statement admitting that he did ignore the complaints and that yes, he did drop the ball and promised not to do it in the future. But what about the 50 dead cats? Allowing him to get off from animal cruelty charges sets a dangerous precident for all town officials and private citizen, basically stating that a cat's life is not that important.

PLEASE READ THE FULL STORY AS REPORTED BY WTNH BELOW

The Story Behind this petition:
 

By News Channel 8's Crystal Haynes
Posted March 27, 2008
5:25 PM

New Haven (WTNH) _ The city of New Haven is taking responsibility for cats discovered inside a foreclosed home.

Stunning pictures taken from inside the New Haven home say it all. As many as 50 cats were left to die in the historic !Quinnipiac Ave. home. Their carcases were left for possibly more than a year. Thursday, the city admits more could have been done to prevent this.

"We're gonna learn from this," Andrew Rizzo said.

"I got 60 people that deal with these issues. Maybe I just need to follow up a little bit more on the,"

Concerned neighbor, Ian Christmann says he sent 16 emails over two years complaining of the smell at 467 Quinnipiac Ave.  Rizzo admits he got them all, but didn't follow up on them all. Today, Christmann says he feels vindicated.

"I'm glad that there's at least the attention on it and the realization that things weren't done as they should have been. We could do better."

Rizzo's office is not the only ones to respond to complaints. Animal control officers have responded to one or two calls of cat neglect in the home, which was one an apartment house.  The latest complaint came just this fall.

[I] "saw about six cats living on the second floor of the house in September," Stephanie Johnson, of Animal Control, said. Those cats were not removed because there was food in the second floor apartment. The cats, found yesterday, had been sealed in the basement unit.

The unit, now has been cleaned along with the rest of the home, as the bank prepares to sell. The home is just one of many in New Haven in foreclosure. Often times, the former owners aren't the only ones pushed out. Pets sometimes end up homeless as well.