The stench from the room where the dogs were kept was so overwhelming, one officer ran outside to vomit.
These gory details were revealed at a motion hearing in Fitchburg District Court Thursday in the animal-cruelty case of James Ferreri.
Ferreri, 64, of 441 Townsend Harbor Road in Lunenburg, owned the dogs and the building and is charged with operating an unlicensed kennel and four counts of animal cruelty.
His lawyer, Richard Farrell, is attempting to dismiss as evidence everything police officers observed inside the basement because they lacked a search warrant when they entered the building.
Fitchburg police Sgt. Matthew Lemay defended his decision to enter the building on the grounds that it was an emergency.
On July 26, 2012, a gas worker from Unitil notified the police of a building filled with animal feces that contained at least four pit bulls at 444 Water St. The Unitil employee was doing work inside the building.
Lemay testified there was a powerful odor of feces and ammonia that could be detected 10 feet away from the exterior of the building. He said the ammonia smell comes from old urine that has broken down after sitting for a long period of time.
The dogs inside were also making a racket, including barking and a strange pained sounds, he testified.
"It was a gut-wrenching, howling sound," said Lemay. "I've never heard a dog make that sound before in my life."
Lemay said he looked around the building but couldn't find a way to get inside.
A neighbor then approached Lemay and handed him a phone. The man on the other end of the line identified himself as Ferrari and said he owned the property, Lemay testified.
Ferrari refused to give police permission to enter the building and told Lemay he was in Waltham and did not have anyone nearby with a key, according to Lemay's testimony.
Lemay said he determined that police needed to access the building because the dogs appeared to be in a dangerous environment. He said it would have taken several hours to get a search warrant.
"We needed to remove them from that environment for their own safety," he said.
Lemay said Lt. Kevin O'Brien was also consulted when making the decision to enter the building with force. Lemay testified that he was at the scene for a total of four hours and that Ferrari never showed up.
Once inside, Lemay said the strength of the smell hit him hard and made him stop in his tracks. The first floor was covered with animal waste, some of it piled up or in plastic buckets.
In the basement, four pit bulls were confined to three cages filled with urine and feces, he testified.
The basement had no lights, no ventilation, no food and no water for the animals.
Jeffrey Stephens, who has worked as the code-enforcement officer and animal health inspector for the Board of Health for 13 years, called the scene "one of the worst smells I've come across in terms of environmental interior smells."
Animal Control Officer Susan Kowaleski said the animals had been standing in waste for so long they had what appeared to be chemical burns on their skin from contact with feces and urine.
Judge Andrew L. Mandell will decide whether police entered the building legally. In deciding whether the situation reached the level of an emergency, Mandell said he will only consider the information and observations police had before the door was opened, not after.
Farrell insisted the police failed to meet that standard.
"(At the time) the only information that they have regarding the dogs and the conditions of the dogs comes from a phone call from Unitil," said Farrell. "It doesn't say the dogs are suffering, it doesn't say there's one dead on the floor, it says the conditions are bad."
Farrell said his client told Lemay that the animals were in a clean environment with food and water. He said police had no reason to believe the dogs were in danger of dying before a warrant could be obtained.
"There were moldy turds down there. That shows that this has been going on a while," said Farrell.
Prosecutor Joseph T. Moriarty, Jr. defended the emergency qualification.
"The officer could not have acted more reasonably," he said. "Those dogs could have been dying inside and based on the sounds that the officer heard that seemed to be the case."
Mandell said he needs more time to look at rulings and arguments to see if emergency exceptions to warrant requirements extend to the protection of animals. The Supreme Judicial Court is seeking amicus briefs and memoranda for a similar case, Commonwealth v. Heather M. Duncan, and he said he intends to look into that as well.
The case will continue on May 21.
Deputy Police Chief Philip Kearns confirmed that all four dogs have been adopted. Now named Moe, Larry, Curly and Shemp, the dogs were originally held as evidence until the department got permission from the state and lawyers on both sides to allow the animals to be adopted.
(sentinelandenterprise.com - April 5, 2013)
