Companion Animals / 25recalled: “The deputies told us, ‘If you want to get out alive, you
have to go now. We’re saving people, not animals.’” One evacuee,
Carol Hamm, said: “People were there with dogs, cats and birds,
too. You name it, people brought them. There was an old woman
who wanted to take her Yorkie [Yorkshire terrier]. The dog was so
tiny she could fi t it in her purse. They made her leave it.”^14 Rather
than transporting the animals to safety, Parish deputies shot and
killed the dogs and cats left in their care. The reported numbers
vary between thirty-fi ve and forty. Once the deputies had killed the
animals at the schools, they went into the street to kill strays.
David Leeson Jr., a photographer for the Dallas Morning News,
was on assignment in St. Bernard Parish. He and the reporter
accompanying him were searching for a dog who was the subject
of a photo Leeson had taken that conveyed the plight of the region’s
animals. Known only as “Oily Dog,” the small dog, perhaps a Lhasa
apso, sits alone, coated with oil from a St. Bernard Parish refi n-
ery. Leeson had returned to St. Bernard’s to fi nd “Oily Dog.” As he
stopped to help another dog wandering the streets, police offi cers
drove up in two vehicles and shot the dog. Leeson recorded the
incident on videotape and then began to interview Deputy Mike
Minton, then of the St. Bernard Parish sheriff’s offi ce, about what
he was doing. Leeson asked Minton how many dogs he had killed.
Minton replied, “Enough.” In late September and early October,
Anderson Cooper gave the incident wide exposure on CNN.^15 David
Leeson’s videotape became evidence in an investigation by the Lou-
isiana attorney general. The case eventually went to court, and the
new attorney general, Buddy Caldwell, dismissed all charges of ani-
mal cruelty against Minton and Sergeant Chip Englande.
In addition to the shootings on the street, as many as thirty-
three dogs and cats were shot execution style at P.G.T. Beauregard
Middle School. Carol Hamm had evacuated to the high school while
her husband and son took their four dogs to Beauregard Middle
School by boat. Sheriff’s deputies assured them they would take
the dogs to an animal shelter. The two then paddled to the high
school and were evacuated with Hamm the following day. When
Hamm later returned to search for the dogs, she found evidence of