Thank you for being a voice for the voiceless! It's going on over three weeks since Mr. Rich's horrid discovery at the Marlin city animal shelter.  And there are still no arrests, no charges, not even confirmed resignations, terminations, or administrative leave. The city officials have been silent since the first week that the story broke. We ask for answers, and all we hear are crickets from our city officials. We also learned this week that the Falls County Sheriff's investigators have not reached out to gather evidence or a witness statement from Mr. Rich, who is the person who discovered the horrid conditions to include malnourished and dead dogs, witnessed the police chief disposing of the dead body and cleaning the crime scene, and took in one of the malnourished dogs himself. You would think he would be on the top of the investigation list. 

So we decided to visit with the Falls County Sheriff, Joe Lopez, yesterday who is leading the investigation of these alleged animal cruelty and tampering crimes at the city shelter. Per Sheriff Lopez, he is now down a 4th investigator and was already needing 10 additional officers between the jail and on the streets before losing these investigators. He said he doesn’t have a lot of time to put into the investigation as he and his staff are already working around the clock. They are going to try to get to it but it’s going to take a long time (now mind you, there are statute of limitations surrounding this). So we suggested reaching out to the Texas Rangers for assistance since his department is overwhelmed and understaffed. His response, “well yeah umm…we aren’t going to do that. They aren’t into doing anything with this”.
Sheriff Lopez and DA Gilliam can request assistance from the Texas Rangers. Additionally, State AG Paxton can order them to investigate. We need to pressure DA Gilliam and State AG Paxton, as Sheriff Lopez has made it loud and clear he isn’t doing anything. 

On a side note, more than once Sheriff Lopez explained his solution to this issue. He plans to talk to the mayor and the Police Chief and ask them to give him a key to the animal shelter so he can check in any time on any day to see ‘if anything looks off’. He believes this solution will appease us and send us on our way. We need to be louder than ever!! They really think we are going to go away and they will continue on as before. We need to be louder and show them we aren’t going anywhere until justice is served!! We need you!! Please share our petition to encourage more signatures in support of demanding Texas State AG Ken Paxton to order the Texas Rangers to conduct a fair, unbiased investigation. Thank you for being a voice for the voiceless, as we seek justice for the Marlin city shelter dogs!!!!