"BASSACRE: Karen Bass's Slaughter of Hundreds of Healthy, Adoptable Animals Is Her Fault, And Nobody Else's" by Daniel Guss
LA Mayor ignores empty kennels, corrupt practices and lies told in her name. Part 1
No surprise, but Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is failing miserably in almost every aspect of the job, except in photo opportunities, dishonesty and burying her head in the sand.
As I predicted last August, Bass’s misguided, politically charged humane policy decisions would result in her killing hundreds of healthy, adoptable and mislabeled animals who have been suffering in hideously cruel conditions at her LA Animal Services despite dozens of empty kennels, misuse of private email accounts to conduct official city business by Democratic political operatives and lies told in her name by Staycee Dains, the only person she interviewed for the lucrative job of LAAS general manager despite warnings by many to not hire her.
Dains, along with assistant gm Annette Ramirez, haul-in a combined $600,000 per year. Hackery, instead of accomplishment, pays well if you play the game with Bass.
Except hacks are sometimes busted-cold lying.
Lying to the mayor.
Lying to city employees and volunteers.
And lying to the media.
Here’s Part 1 of how it recently happened.
The Infamous Jake Miller Email
On March 1, 2024, LAAS Volunteer Coordinator Jake Miller, a long-time figure inside the city’s deadly, diseased pounds, distributed an email detailing Bass’s plan to slaughter hundreds of healthy, adoptable dogs, not to mention scores of other animals whose births City Hall continually fails to prevent.
Right off the bat, Miller’s math was wrong.
While his email described the four categories into which 800 doomed dogs were categorized (1. Dangerous, 2. Unsafe, 3. Suffering and 4. Thriving), he wrote, “Currently, there are approximately 250 dogs in categories 1 - 3. There are another 450 dogs in category 4 that we do not have the space or resources for.”
It doesn’t take a math degree to see that 250 plus 450 equals 700, not 800.
Dains and Bass’s proxies refused to address the kill plan despite Dains’ repeated assertion that LAAS never kills animals due to a lack of space.
A QUICK SIDEBAR:
LAAS has repeatedly shown that you can never trust the way it accounts for animals in its pounds.
It will claim that a dog or cat with sniffles is “suffering,” while it simultaneously withholds (or squanders the money to buy) antibiotics. The animal gets sicker and is eventually killed. Statistically, the “suffering” animal dies due to deliberate (i.e. criminal) neglect; the city has one less animal to care for; but it isn’t counted as being killed for lack of pound space. The obedient Los Angeles Times for years knowingly looked the other way as mayors and dopey LA City Councilmembers like Paul Koretz stayed in office for decades, with Koretz as the shill “animal welfare guy,” despite his always-vague residency. This also kept his wife and daughter on the public payroll.
That’s how corruption works in LA. Right down to micro-level.
Back to the story…
Let’s assume that Miller, who I have intermittently known for about 20 years, and his colleagues got these deadly categorizations right. His detailed email encourages volunteers to focus their efforts on helping to save those in categories 3 and 4, which is quantified as somewhere around 600 dogs, before they are killed.
Why Was Miller Detailing Bass’s Deadly Plan to Kill Hundreds?
Communicating a struggling Mayor’s plan to kill hundreds of healthy, adoptable animals is logically the job of her well-paid deputies, general managers and City Councilmembers.
Except it’s a responsibility that Bass deputies, especially Zach Seidl and Jackie Hamilton, and Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who chairs the committee overseeing LAAS, repeatedly dodged each time I asked about it.
Their need for a fall guy to quietly lay out Bass’s desperate kill plan to volunteers and local rescue groups explains why Dains sent Miller a series of manipulative texts to groom him for the role.
Dains is in green, Miller is in grey:
One of Miller’s replies to Dains shows that both she and assistant general manager Annette Ramirez — the $600,000 duo — were both deeply involved in the detailed kill plan that they and Bass had Miller fronting:
It further shows that Miller sent Dains a copy of the email for her approval before it was distributed.
But as soon as the deadly details leaked, they went viral and Bass’s deputies found themselves in a public relations nightmare that sent Dains into full-blown denial mode.
In an email Dains subsequently blasted with the subject line “Correcting Misconceptions of Email,” she threw Miller under the bus and labeled the details of his email a “conspiracy theory,” along with other dubious claims about her reducing pound overcrowding:
Except Dains’ texts with Miller prove that she was lying through her teeth, including in this ABC-7 report by Leo Stallworth:
Miller’s full email is provided here.
That’s a lot of deadly detail for something that Dains alleges is a “conspiracy theory.”
As Miller wrote, “Here is the hard news… Red Listing (i.e. LAAS’s imminent kill list) our dogs has begun today. Red Listing is what the department does when they request our General Manager to authorize euthanasia for an animal.”
In Part 2 of this investigation, I’ll show how Bass, her deputies and Dains all ignored my inquiries about documented empty kennel space; a malicious undercounting of empty kennels and how Dains manipulated doomed dogs while simultaneously using them to promote herself on social media, including with a gentle senior named “Bobby.”
Also, here’s a question I’ll address.
Incoming City Council president Marqueece Harris-Dawson represents just one of 15 City Council districts. But neither he nor his staffers can explain why a full 50% of Bass’s dog pound kills take place in his district while there is available kennel space, and that volunteers are being turned away.
If Harris-Dawson doesn’t know what’s going on in his own district (or does he?), how can he look out for the entire city as Council prez?
And lastly, nobody from Bass on down the line, can justify why so many of the animals they kill are deprived of sedation, which is widely considered a cruel and barbaric act. Danes’ excuse for this further calls into question her suitability for the job, and she probably doesn’t see the irony of how she has tried to explain it.
Karen Bass can immediately halt the corruption, killing and lies made in her name and get to the truth with a single executive action today to pause everything.
Isn’t that right, Jackie Hamilton?
Let’s pick this up next week.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a multi-award-winning journalist. In June ‘23, he won the LA Press Club’s “Online Journalist of the Year” and “Best Activism Journalism” awards. He has been City Editor for the Mayor Sam network, and a featured contributor for CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW 89.9 FM, KRLA 870 AM, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News and the Los Angeles Times in its sports, opinion, entertainment and Sunday Magazine sections among other publishers.)