What is a puncture wound? How prosecutors use words when hard evidence is lacking.

 

This photo shows the worst injury  said to result from an incident between Brindi and a dog named Lucy in front of her house one dark night in 2010.

HRM calls it a puncture wound. 

There was also a shallow abrasion about the same on Lucy's opposite shoulder, and a scratch on one ear, which was not photographed.  
No photos of injuries Brindi allegedly caused before 2010 - i.e., before she was seized to be killed in 2008 - are available. This is because there was nothing worth photographing.

What gets me is that nobody in the media and very few others noticed the glaring absence of the customary bloody photos of a "victim dog". Did they not ask why HRM never released any photos to the media? I was too busy trying to keep my head above water to even think of it, and nobody ever asked. Yet this photo is really all HRM had to show when it tried a third time to get a lawful order to kill Brindi. And failed a third time.

These photos show injuries sustained by a dog in a dog attack from 2014.
It penetrated through all layers of skin. And it needed stitches and a drainage tube to keep it from becoming infected. 
The injured dog's vet care cost its owner over $2,000.  

This is the image the words "puncture wound" conjure up in people's minds.

HRM did not seize the dog that attacked. It did not prosecute its owners with the aim of obtaining a court order to destroy the dog. It did issue a fine and a muzzle order. However, not long afterwards, the dog was reported - and photographed - running at large with no muzzle on.  

A muzzle order violation! The only reason HRM seized Brindi twice.
But for that dog, HRM, or rather Officer Brad Kelly, did nothing about it. That dog is still running loose on a beach near you.

This is the vet bill from the injuries allegedly caused by Brindi.
There is a second bill two weeks later.












Why is HRM doing this to us?

Who put the "no" in Nova Scotia? My December 2010 Memo to HRM Prosecutor Katherine Salsman

I  met with Ms. Salsman for three hours in early December, 2010 - exactly five years ago -  to offer five possible options for Brindi, in return for me pleading guilty and paying fines on three offences HRM graciously charged me for one incident, even though that incident happened by mistake and led to no "measurable harm" as they say.

By then HRM had been holding Brindi for nearly three months - again. HRM by-law thugs (sorry, but they were) had also evicted me from my home unlawfully, and Dawn Sloane and other members of Council refused to allow me my right of appeal. So my cat Amelia and I were essentially homeless. 

Two friends came with me to that meeting. It was Ms. Salsman who declared that the meeting was not a negotiation because she refused to negotiate. I said fine, I will talk, and you will listen! And since it wasn't a negotiation then there was no obligation for confidentiality. This was clear. 

Ms. Salsman, with an alarming air of authority (not to say belligerence) for someone so recently out of law school, vetoed every single offer. When I asked to talk with her superior, she thoroughly blocked that idea.

My friends and I went home. Or rather, I left, and they went home. I tried not to lose my mind. I wrote up what we each said in a memo and sent it to her about a week later. She wrote back insisting on confidentiality after the fact, even threatened various consequences. Too late.

So this is the memo. 


December 14, 2010

Dear Ms. Salsman:

Here is a summary of your position and points you expressed last Friday in our meeting and in
other conversations and documents since October.

• HRM is seeking guilty verdicts on one or more of three charges solely for the purpose of
obtaining a court order to kill Brindi.

• You rejected my offer to plead guilty on all three charges in exchange for Brindi’s return and
stated that HRM plans to ask for one dollar fines and seek a court order to destroy my dog.

• Under no circumstances will you, as HRM prosecutor,

1. Release Brindi pending trial, even on a bond as high as $10,000, which I offered.
2. Let her go to a foster home pending trial.
3. Drop the HRM request to put Brindi down.
4. Let her go back with me to the States (or anywhere else) permanently.
5. Let her go to another owner, either here or anywhere else.
6. Make or accept any offer for me to get her back and keep her alive.

• HRM will return Brindi only if ordered to [do so] by a court.

With regard to your goal as prosecutor, you stated further that:

• Under the law, you are not required to show any grounds for putting Brindi down,* though
you concede no reasonable court will order destruction of life without sufficiently compelling
arguments.