Hounded to Death

May the Lord God bring solace to Cynthia Williams and her daughter after the death of her husband and son at the hands of animal rights activists. The activists will scream and whine that they didn't actually kill her family, oh no! They just hounded, harassed, and destroyed the family until suicide seemed like the only way out. 

You see, the animal rights activists wanted to pass legislation to outlaw dog breeding in North Carolina. But to accomplish this, they needed some splashy and lurid raids to drum up support for their false flag efforts.  To animal rights activists, the end justifies the means.   As part of their larger campaign, they carefully selected some targets, not hard to find in this long crumbling economy.  One of their targets was Joe and Cynthia Williams of NC Great Danes, Wilson County, North Carolina, a close knit faith based family who started out as dog rescuers but had turned to breeding Great Danes.

But first they had to seed the ground before raking in the crop.  The animal rights front sent in undercover activists to buy puppies from the Williams to then later claim the puppies were sick, a standard tactic of this movement.  They had to have claims of "complaints from consumers" to run to the po-leese with.  Every dog breeder victim of the animal rights movement reading this will know what I'm saying.   These activists are answering almost every single ad of a puppy for sale in this nation in an effort to track and stalk America's dog breeders.

Leading the raid was HSUS's North Carolina State Director Kim Alboum, with the brand new "Great Dane Rescue Alliance" along for the ride, who had only recently been organized. Sound suspicious yet?  A newly formed "rescue" is standing by to accept dogs of the same breed as a breeder about to be raided.  Sounds suspicious to me.  Even more suspicious is the fact that the Great Dane Alliance is represented by an animal rights lawyer.  More on that later.  As for Kim Alboum, HSUS hired her from a human resources consulting firm, which gives her such great experience and training in animal issues.   Since joining HSUS she's been involved in such sterling animal rescue efforts such as the Alabama 44.   Then again, many animal shelters in North Carolina are death traps, far and beyond worse than any dog breeder could ever degenerate too.

After making lurid claims of animal abuse these activists got the Wilson County Sheriff's department to swear out a warrant to raid the Williams. Even though these activists claimed to the media that the Williams were actively starving the dogs in their care on a daily basis and being inhumane and cruel to them, the Sheriff's department sat and twiddled their thumbs before serving the warrant 34 days later in a more politically opportune time.

Then in August of 2012, the pre-arranged splashy raid of the "puppy mill" was held and immediately afterwards the activists started releasing their social media propaganda to further their cause.  HSUS said, "The HSUS Assists in Rescue of 28 Dogs from North Carolina Puppy Mill."  Notice how the HSUS emphasizes that they took part in the raid with their ritzy raid trucks and did transportation of the animals but that they are not housing and caring for them.  But not content to stop there, the press release oozes on about how animal cruelty in North Carolina is reaching epic proportions because those pesky Carolinian's just don't have any laws against cruelty.  Shame on you!  If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.  Six days later the HSUS raid truck is in action again in Pamlico County scoring another 20 dogs from a breeder and whipping up the frenzy yet again that North Carolina just has no laws to prevent these horrible people from existing!  We need more laws I tell you!  Why isn't anyone listening to us!  The animal rights activists whipped up such a frenzy that even the North Carolina Governor's wife drank the Kool-aid and spoke out about the need for more laws to outlaw dog breeding in the state.  

The activists moaned that the William's were starving their dogs being careful not to say that one of the dogs was 15 years old and another was 13.  They talked much about untreated tumors but failed to say that to their massive disappointment, the dog they claimed had a tumor had actually undergone surgery that very day to treat an enlarged mammary gland, not a tumor, and that dog was under active veterinary care.  They talked about the dogs being "broken" but never mentioned actual injuries.  No, they were claiming the dogs were broken in spirit, something far more intangible and impossible to disprove.   But behind the splash and dash in this highly scripted performance are human beings.  Behind the lurid headlines was a nine year old boy who had to witness these yahoo's dragging his 13 year old dog away by his neck with a catch pole, while the little boy screamed and cried.  After the raid force's macho man fun and games were over with, the William's were charged with 23 counts of animal cruelty amid a media induced defamation frenzy.  

"They can go in, take somebody’s animals, say they incurred all these bills and then just take off, and that’s what they do sometimes,” Farris said. "The breeding facility operated by the Williams family in 2012 had been approved both by the American Kennel Club and the local sheriff’s office prior to the illegal search of their property, which resulted in the illegal seizure of their animals in August of 2012. The condition of the animals was greatly exaggerated both by the plaintiffs in the allegations contained in pleadings and the news media.”

What the HSUS and others were not expecting is that the Williams family fought back.   They hired local lawyer, Will Farris and fought, and fought, and fought.  They claimed that they were perfectly good breeders who had made $15,000 in improvements to their kennels after inspections by deputies and the American Kennel Club.  They fought back and they won.   The Judge ruled that the search warrant and seizure of their dogs was illegal.  The prosecution quietly dropped the charges against them and HSUS tucked their tail between their legs and left town leaving the Great Dane Rescue Alliance holding the bag.    

Because dog breeders never get their dogs back, as you can expect, The Great Dane Rescue Alliance sued for custody of the stolen dogs represented by their animal rights lawyer.   Hearings and testimony dragged the litigation out wracking up costs for the Williams.  Ultimately they came to a settlement with the Alliance were they got just one dog back and small monetary settlement for the 27 other stolen dogs.   What if someone stole your car and then sued you for custody of it and then settled later saying, "I"ll pay you $50 for the car and I'm keeping it."  What then?   Would that be right?  The Judge ruled the raid was illegal yet the William's only got one dog back.  

Think this was the end?  Of course not.   Animal rights activists do not care about people like Williams, they are just propaganda for the cause.  Now out of the woodwork crawls a previous puppy buyer to sue them for their dog supposedly having caught Parvo, a highly contagious disease.  The Williams continued to fight back pointing out that the first exams the puppy underwent after it was purchased, the puppy was healthy.  It was only after that that it contracted Parvo from the new puppy owners care, not the Williams.  However, these "puppy buyers" are lawyers and more than willing to continue to drag out the horror and pain for the Williams and their children. 

What the media never focuses on in these cases is how much trauma the children go through when they are involved in armed police raids of their home.  The Williams children, especially their nine year old son Bobby, were so traumatized by this life shattering event that they had to undergo counseling to deal with the pain.  People who have never been through a police raid have no idea of the tremendous level of stress involved.  Even years later, just seeing a cop on the street is enough to bring on panic attacks and flashbacks.  Parents will never forget their children's trauma and will remember until their dying day the screams and distress of their children watching cops rip their beloved pets out of their arms.  Due to the animal rights defamation frenzy against them, Bobby and his sister were taunted at school by their classmates so badly that they had to be pulled out and homeschooled.  Children can be unbelievably cruel to each other.  The social devastation is the worst part of it all.  Overnight you become a pariah just at the point when you need the most support.  Their lawyer, Will Farris said, "At the end of the day, when you go in and you make a splash for media or courts, it's important to remember there are children and family and animals affected."  "When you have these types of cases, there are so many misimpressions, misimpression (that) they don't care about their animals. 

Looking at this picture of the family and one of their beloved dogs makes my stomach hurt. 

In the aftermath of this tragedy, the family was ultimately forced to give up their home and move to Nashville in an attempt to start their lives over.  Joe Williams tried to get training and certification as a refrigerator repairman to support the family and they were forced to move into a small duplex.  

The Williams family underwent eighteen months of humiliation, torture, hell, and harassment.  Their reputations destroyed, their children so traumatized they couldn't go to school.  Their financial stability ruined both now and for decades into the future.   On August 12, 2013, both Joe Williams and his son Bobby were killed in what authorities say was a murder/suicide.  It is being reported that Joe shot his son and then turned the gun on himself after setting the duplex on fire, but we weren't there.  Internet armchair quarterbacks who continue to slander this family, right now today, are not there.   Only Joe, his son, and the Lord God knows what happened.  Let's leave it at that.  Shall we?  Can we be good citizens, good neighbors, and give our support to the remaining surviving family members and stop with the mudslinging over events that we did not witness, did not live through, and can only speculate on?  There has already been enough pain for a lifetime for this family.  

In speaking of the tragedy, the families lawyer said, "This is just the accumulation of everything that has happened to them over the last year and a half,” Farris said. "The financial, emotional and physical stress of the court battles that continue today has been overwhelming for every member in the family. The overwhelming negative pressures and harassments by several animal rights groups contributed to this tragic event.”

Where's the Governor's wife now?