I was born and raised in Savannah.
It will always be home in my mind, no matter where I live. Coastal Empire was the title of my first novel for a reason. Savannah is in my blood.
But today, that blood is boiling.
Last weekend I was back home, visiting friends, when an article in the Savannah Morning News caught my eye.
The story was about a dog named Barkley, Savannah Chief of Police Willie Lovett, animal control, and a “volunteer” named Diane Abolt. I’ll briefly summarize the salient details to be found in the article.
Diane Abolt legitimately had first claim to adopting Barkley by virtue of being the first person to fill an application. No favoritism was shown.
No argument from me on this point; she had dibs on the dog.
However, Abolt failed to adopt Barkley within the standard time frame, forfeiting all claims under the shelter rules that apply to everybody else.
This is pretty much universal, standard animal shelter procedure.
As the saying goes: you snooze, you lose.
People change their minds all the time, so you never hold a dog for one particular person. You certainly don’t hold a dog after the waiting period has expired, especially when another fully qualified adopter is patiently waiting in line.
The goal is to place as many healthy animals as possible into loving forever homes, not play favorites. A kennel run occupied by a dog that ought to be in its forever home takes up valuable space and could cause an otherwise adoptable dog to be euthanized simply due to overcrowding.
It’s how the animal rescue and adoption business works, or how it’s supposed to work.
The next applicant in line after Ms. Abolt happened to be Chatham animal control shelter manager Jodi Lewis, who promptly adopted Barkley after properly executing all of her paperwork.
To be absolutely clear: the dog legally belonged to Mrs. Lewis and her family from that moment forward. This point should not be in dispute. Lewis has the paperwork to prove it.
If Chief Lovett hadn’t been able to exert undue influence over Mrs. Lewis due to her position as a county employee, this would never have been an issue. His threats would have been idle and carried no weight.
The chief couldn’t threaten to arrest Lewis; she hadn’t done anything wrong.
She still hasn’t. Instead, the chief did something egregiously wrong. He abused his power.
Lovett had the authority to threaten firing Lewis if she refused to surrender the dog, and so he did.
Now after serving on the board of a local Humane Society in the Atlanta area and with years of my own experience with animal rescue, I think that it’s safe to say I know a little bit about animal rescue and how it should work.
I even wrote a book about dog fostering called Always a Next One.
While I might not know the intimate details of how Chatham County animal control is run, I do know a fair bit about how normal operations are conducted. And none of this was necessary.
If she really wanted Barkley so much, all Diane Abolt had to do was pick up the phone and give a reasonable excuse for not appearing during the waiting period, which she now claims was due to illness. Abolt was well known by animal control and probably would have been cut some slack.
She could have called or otherwise made arrangements to adopt the dog if Barkley was truly that important to her. Yet Abolt did nothing in a timely fashion, and the dog legally, morally and ethically belonged to the Lewis family.
This shouldn’t even be a news story. But the “Mother Teresa” of animal rescue (according to husband Russ) just couldn’t let Barkley go.
So Abolt used her personal connections to usurp the ways things normally work. Flaunting his power, Savannah Chief of Police Willie Lovett intervened on her behalf, making this into a major news story.
The adoption of a dog from animal control normally doesn’t even merit a mention in the news. The Chief of Police using the full weight and power of his office to threaten, intimidate and coerce his employee to surrender a dog that legally belonged to her made it major news.
Clearly, Chief Lovett believes he is above the law. Is he?
The fact that Mrs. Lewis is a county employee should be irrelevant to the matter, but Lovett made it relevant. He threatened her job — over her dog.
How would you feel if this trampling on your rights and threat to your livelihood happened to you? Don’t laws apply to the police as well as the general public? To paraphrase The Lone Ranger, If Chief Lovett represent the law, I’d rather be an outlaw.
If the chief worried as much about murder, robbery and assault as much as he apparently cares for meddling in the private affairs of an employee under his power and control, I might not be afraid to walk around downtown Savannah after dark.
To top it all off…what makes this story particularly odious? Adding insult to injury, Abolt didn’t even want the dog for herself.
Using Lovett as her weapon of choice, Abolt demanded the dog from Lewis, only to give it to somebody else she chose through her “volunteer” organization.
The poor dog’s last chance to stay in his rightful home is apparently in the hands of Savannah city manager Stephanie Cutter.
Hope springs eternal that justice will ultimately prevail for Barkley, but it’s with guarded optimism.
Lovett has a reputation for heavy-handed tactics. Remember this chief has forced some of the best people in the Savannah police department out and into early retirement during his tyrannical watch. One notable example is retired detective Gerry Long.
It seems that Mr. Lovett doesn’t tolerate those who dare question his perceived absolute power. Apparently he’s a petty and vindictive man, as well as a bully. It’s probably a good thing I no longer live in Chatham County.
As Lord Acton once famously observed, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Ironically, the name of Abolt’s alleged volunteer rescue operation run out of her garage is F.A.C.T.S. — an acronym for “Friends of Animal Control–Team Savannah.”
After these shenanigans, I seriously doubt Ms. Abolt has any remaining friends affiliated with Chatham County animal control.
Hey, I’m Ebon Talifarro, my class (8th grade) wants to interview you, would you have time to answer a few questions?