Date: January 31, 2014
WJLA ABC 7 spoke with TELG plaintiff, Amanda Surber, about animal abuse allegations at the Humane Society of Washington County, MD. Ms. Surber, a former employee at the Humane Society, claimed she was fired for refusing to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
[TRANSCRIPT]
WJLA ABC 7 Interviews Plaintiff of the Employment Law Group About Animal Abuse Allegations at Humane Society of Washington County, MD
(Transcribed by The Employment Law Group)
Voiceover: Thanks for watching ABC 7 News.
Alison Starling (Anchor): Serious allegations tonight against an area animal shelter that’s supposed to care for hundreds of animals without homes.
Leon Harris (Anchor): Suzanne Kennedy is in our newsroom with a look at who’s making these abuse allegations. Suzanne.
Suzanne Kennedy (Reporter): Well, Leon and Alison, at least two former employees are sounding the alarm, saying the Humane Society of Washington County mistreated animals, adopted out sick animals, and had a mass euthanization in just one day. In fact, one of those workers has filed suit, saying she was wrongfully terminated when she refused to keep the shelter’s secrets.
Amanda Surber (TELG Plaintiff): Here you see travel carriers stacked on top of each other, multiple cats in one carrier.
Kennedy: Amanda Surber is showing evidence of what she believes is cruelty to animals at the hands of those who are supposed to protect them. For two and a half years, Surber was an animal care technician at the Humane Society of Washington County in Hagerstown. She says new management that came on board last January was fixated on making the facility a no-kill shelter. The results: There were too many cats, many of them sick.
Surber: The overcrowding, the best way to describe it: It looked like a concentration camp with the way they were stacked on top of each other. We would have five, six, cats in one cage.
Kennedy: Former volunteer Andrea Carroll witnessed the same conditions.
Andrea Carroll: Forty cats would be coming in every day. We’ve nowhere to put them. They’re sick. Diseases are spreading that we can’t treat.
Kennedy: Surber says the mistreatment ran the gamut from cats with infections and disease to, in one case, more than 100 being put to death in one day.
Surber: We had to go room to room to put these animals down. You can’t kill 130 animals in an hour and expect it to be humane.
Kennedy: Surber and others became increasingly concerned about the conditions and an effort, she says, to cover up the number of cats being put down.
Carroll: They did not have the welfare of animals in mind. They were more concerned with getting the euthanasia numbers down at whatever the cost.
Kennedy: Surber was asked to sign a non-disclosure form. When she refused, they fired her.
Surber: They wanted me to keep the secret and to not speak up.
Kennedy: Today, the Humane Society allowed us inside the animal adoption rooms, which were clean and not crowded. Declining an on-camera statement, it did say, “We strongly deny the allegations in the lawsuit and will defend ourselves at the appropriate time in court.”
These two former employees say what was going on at the shelter was nothing less than cat hoarding. They say, if animal control was sent into a situation like what was going on there, the animals would have seized, and charges would have been filed. The Humane Society has until early next month to file a response to the lawsuit.
In the newsroom, Suzanne Kennedy, ABC 7 News.
Harris: Thank you, Suzanne.
