A 9-year-old boy is critical condition after he was hit by a car in Bristol Township this afternoon.
The accident happened at 2501 Bath Road around 4:30 p.m.
Police say this was not a hit-and-run accident.
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Firefighters battled a barn fire for more than two hours tonight in West Bradford, Chester County tonight.
Skyforce10 flew over the barn on Lieds Road just after 8:00 p.m. as flames shot through the roof.
The building is a total loss after being completely engulfed in fire.
At 10:15 p.m., fire crews remained on the scene putting out hot spots.
No one was injured in the fire. The cause is under investigation.
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Philadelphia Police are searching for the gunman who opened fire on three men tonight in the Kingsessing section of the city.
The shooting happened around 7:00 p.m. on the 4900 block of Greenway Avenue.
Police say a 23-year-old man was shot in the leg, a 20-year-old man was shot in the face and shoulder and the third victim, a 20-year-old man, was shot in the buttocks.
All three shooting victims are in stable condition at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
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An investigation is underway after a college student is found dead inside her apartment.
The Lehigh County coroner confirms to NBC10 that the body was a 19-year-old woman who was a student at Lehigh University.
Her body was discovered tonight at an apartment at 513 Fillmore Street in Bethlehem. That's 0.2 miles away from the Lehigh University campus.
The woman hasn't been identified.
The coroner's office will perform an autospy tomorrow to find out how the woman died.
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James Dennis has spent most of his adult life in prison after being convicted of robbing and murdering 17-year-old Chedell Williams at Fern Rock Transportation center in 1991. A ruling today by U.S. District Judge Anita Brody, overturning the conviction, could see Dennis a free man as early as February of next year.
In her ruling, Brody cited numerous flaws in the case against Dennis, calling it "a grave miscarriage of justice.”
The case begs the question, what landed Dennis--a now innocent man--on death row in the first place?
Attorney and Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center Richard Deiter says Pennsylvania’s overuse of the death penalty could be the root cause of the mishandling of this case and others like it.
“I think these mistakes come from what we call the overuse of the death penalty. They just have a system of using the death penalty frequently. And when you do it frequently, you don’t always apply the necessary resources; getting the best defense lawyers and the cases are tried more quickly without enough oversight of whether the prosecutors have turned over all of the necessary evidence,” Deiter said.
“In Pennsylvania they use the death penalty a lot and as so may not be as careful when they do have a trial, and that’s why sometimes I think you get these mistakes. You get low paid defense attorneys, doing the minimum job, as the judge described and that’s how sometimes you get these cases where the wrong person is convicted.”
The Death Penalty Information Center is a national non-profit that promotes informed discussion about use of the death penalty in the United States.
In the 35 years since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the use of the death penalty in the United States, Pennsylvania has executed three death row inmates. In that same time, the State has freed double that amount of inmates—six in total—after the prisoners were found to have been wrongfully convicted. Deiter believes Dennis could be number seven.
“They’ve had more people freed from death row as innocent than they’ve had executed; that’s a disturbing ratio. It’s still too early to tell but this might well be the seventh case, which would put Pennsylvania up there with some states with the most wrongful convictions in the country,” Deiter said.
According to Deiter, Pennsylvania has the fourth largest death row in the country, with 202 inmates pending execution. Nearly half of those inmates are from Philadelphia.
Over the years, Dennis’s case has garnered the support of anti-death penalty activists as near as Illinois and as far Germany.
Tonya Sneed manages www.jimmydennis.org, a website dedicated to supporters of Dennis. Sneed says she’s hopeful that Dennis will be able to go home soon.
“We are very elated with this news. We consider it a victory and we think it’s quite likely that he eventually will be coming home,” she said.
“I think anybody who would actually take the time to read the entire trial transcripts, as I have, and all of the briefs and witness statements, it’s very clear that Jimmy is innocent.”
District Attorney Seth Williams does not agree. In fact, Williams’s office is currently debating whether it will appeal Brody’s decision.
“I am disappointed in the federal court’s decision,” Williams said in a statement. “This defendant was convicted for the brutal murder of a teenage girl on her way home from school; in broad daylight… three passersby saw him do it and identified him in court, without any possible motive to lie.”
Sneed says the District Attorney’s office will have very little evidence to stand on if it decides to appeal or retry the case.
“I can’t imagine that they would retry the case because they really don’t have anything on Jimmy anymore,” she said.
“One witness has recanted and the only thing they really have left are three strangers who by their own testimony and statements say they only saw the assailant for one second, five seconds and 20 seconds. I think stranger identification is very dangerous; it’s very clumsy evidence, and in a lot of cases it’s the number one reason people are wrongfully convicted.”
The Dennis case also brings into question the investigative work of the attorneys on the case, including veteran homicide prosecutor Roger King. King, who retired in 2008, put more than a dozen convicted killers on death row during his 35 year career in the city’s District Attorney’s office.
Tasha Jamerson, a spokesman for the William’s office says Brody’s ruling puts a slanderous shadow on King’s career.
“The court's opinion casts gratuitous aspersion on Mr. King's long career in public service, despite the absence of any evidence that he personally did anything wrong in this case. In fact, convictions in cases tried by Mr. King have been regularly upheld on review. So was this case -- by 4 different courts, including the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania -- before the ruling yesterday of a single federal trial judge,” Jamerson said.
The District Attorney’s office could hold a new trial in the case, or it could appeal to the Third Circuit Court to have Brody’s order overturned. Dennis will have to wait 30 days at minimum and six months at maximum to see if Brody’s order will be challenged.
“We have 30 days to file an appeal and will decide how to proceed before then,” Jamerson said.
The FBI and Philadelphia Police have arrested three men after a high-speed chase through the streets of Kensington.
The chase began shortly after 4:00 p.m. at Trenton and Lehigh Avenues and ended on the 2600 block of Hagert Street.
One witness tells NBC10's George Spencer he's never seen anything like this before. "There were so many guns out here, it was amazing. I've never seen, in all my years in Philadelphia, I've never seen that many cop cars and FBI and police ever," said Francis O'Brien, of Kensington.
The FBI says they were working with police to track down a man on their "most wanted list."
When agents arrived on scene, authorities say that suspect took off in a car with two other men. A gun was tossed out the window of the moving car along the 2500 block of Sepviva Street.
During the pursuit, two FBI vehicles were hit by the suspects' car.
The FBI says the chase ended with the arrest of the wanted men, and the two other men who were inside the getaway car.
Authorities confiscated the gun that was thrown out of the car, and a second gun they found inside.
No one was hurt during the pursuit.
The men haven't been identified. All three are facing local and federal charges.
Summer is not over, yet it's time to formulate a back-to-school plan.
They key to making a smooth transition back into the school routine is preparedness, according to Dr. Julie Gurner, a Philadelphia-based psychologist. Gurner believes the focus for parents should be to make the back-to-school experience positive for their children.
"You are setting up for success by gleaning the benefits of being prepared," said Gurner.
One of the biggest challenges to the back-to-school routing is transitioning your child's sleep pattern from staying up late watching television, to getting up early and eating breakfast. But, it's worth the effort to start dial-backing bedtimes now. That will result in less stress later, Gurner insists.
Teacher Liz Meyer of Germantown has begun discussing and asking her daughters to imagine what their school year will be like, talking about their hopes and fears. Her daughters Effy, 11, and Fudia, 14, are entering middle school and high school this year.
Meyer started those back-to-school conversations in July, and felt like it was "lessening the joy of summer," but concedes it's important to at least attempt to start the conversations as a way of easing back into the school year. "The last couple of years as the girls got older, summer routines shifted away from the norm. Bedtimes and wake-up times changed. Our days became less structured," said Meyer. "So, the first part of back-to-school prep is attempting to get our routines somewhat back in place. Earlier to bed and earlier to rise, regular dinner times, some school work. I don't enjoy doing this!" There is a balance to be struck between summer fun and getting ready for the first day of school. To help ease a child's transition into school, Gurner shares these additional tips: ride the public transportation route together, buy school supplies together, purchase an extra pack of tokens and put your child's bus schedule in their bag. Lunch bridges a child's day at school, put time and thought into your child's lunch plan. Parents may start pre-making meals (or at least plan for a menu of meals) and put dinners in the freezer. Create a lunch menu that is easy, or plan to have your child buy their lunch if easier. "I loathe making lunches each day, but I must. At least I know they are eating nutritious food!" said Meyers. Planning empowers all members of the household, even the littlest ones. Parents of children in daycare and pre-school are also looking forward to new beginnings. Laura Hoover of Chestnut Hill has been a stay at home mom for the last 2.5 years, but now it's time to put Nathan, 2, in nursery school. Hoover plans to pack his bag at night, leaving his book bag by the door where he can find it. She is shopping at consignment stores, seeking clothing such as extra pairs of gloves that can be put to use come winter-time. She's been preparing for her son's first day of nursery school but also thinking down the road to winter when it's probable he may lose a pair of gloves. "Even though he's only two and a half, we are getting our act together," said Hoover. A new school year brings the unknown, even for older students. Upper Darby High School graduate Meghan Donnelly, 18, decided to go to a big university, Penn State, to start the next phase of her life. "I'm ready to go away and be on my own," said Donnelly. "I'm really excited to go away and try something new. I'm going to be responsible for my own time management. It's a good chance for me to grow up and be independent." Looking back on her transition from high school to college, Donnelly recommends that students start to prepare for college early and don't cram it all into senior year. Instead, she says spend your junior year looking at schools. The takeaway Donnelly would like to emphasize to younger students is that the application process was "very stressful," and it's important to stay organized. An early start to looking at colleges, she says, will help relieve stress. All this preparation goes a long way, says Gurner, particularly for younger children who may naturally have anxiety and are in need of emotional preparedness. Contact Sarah Glover at 610-668-5580, sarah.glover@nbcuni.com or follow @skyphoto on Twitter.
A man charged vandalizing a Chester County officer’s car and harassing police during a six-minute long tirade following a traffic stop is moving his case towards a trial.
Matthew Walter faces 13 charges including multiple counts of harassment, making terroristic threats and vandalism for the incidents that took place on June 21.
The 36-year-old waived his formal arraignment in the Court of Common Pleas in Chester County on Thursday – sending the case to trial.
Upper Uwchlan Police say Walter threatened several officers following an early morning traffic stop near the Liberty Union Bar and Grill in Chester Springs, Pa. The entire exchange, which went on for several minutes, was caught on camera by witnesses and posted to the internet.
“You mother f***er. You pulled me over for a speeding ticket c***sucker. You’re a f***ing lying sack of s**t. Where’s the tape,” Walter can be heard shouting at officers. “Wait until I catch you without your f***ing uniform on. And don’t worry, I will. I know where you live, and you live, you sorry mother f***er.”
A short time after the outburst, police say they found Walter walking through the department’s parking lot. Officials say surveillance video showed the man vandalizing a police officer’s personal car with a rock.
Requests for comment from Walter’s attorney were not returned.
A trial date has yet to be set.
Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.
In commemoration of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, NBC News is inviting the public…via Twiter, Facebook, Instagram and Vine to complete the statement “I have a dream that _________.”
Beginning today through Wednesday, August 28th we’re asking people to share what their dream is with a photo, text and/or video using the social media hashtag #Dreamday.
Your dreams may be shared by NBC10 and NBC News.
We’ll be collecting all the messages and featuring them on TODAY and NBC Nightly News and highlighting them on NBCNews.com/DreamDay. Telemundo will also participate using the hashtag #misueñoes. Contributions will be featured on the their morning program “Un Nuevo Dia” and its evening magazine “Al Rojo Vivo.”
Telemundo will run special coverage of the 50th anniversary beginning Sunday on “Enfoque,” through Wednesday on “Noticiero Telemundo.”
NBC will also have special coverage in the days leading up to the 28th beginning with Meet the Press on Sunday August 25th. It will include a re-broadcast the 1963 program with Martin Luther King which took place just days before his March on Washington.
That one- hour Meet the Press program on Sunday the 25th will focus on the American Dream theme. Political leaders will also share the stories that helped shape their view of the American Dream. We are very encouraged by the number of stations that are carrying this program and hope even more will join in.
Two popular Center City night spots have been named in a civil lawsuit by attorneys for Kevin Kless, a 23-year-old Temple graduate who was beaten to death by three men in January, 2012.
The suit, filed in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas by Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky law firm earlier today, lists Lucy's Hat Shop and G Lounge as responsible parties in Kless's death, alleging that both bars served alcohol to Kenneth Enriquiz-Santiago, Steven Ferguson, and Felix Carillo -- the three men convicted of Kless' murder -- despite their being well beyond the point of "visible intoxication" on the night of the murder. The suit also claims that Kless was served alcohol at Lucy’s that night "while he was in a visibly intoxicated condition and while exceedingly inebriated."
According to police, on the night of January 12, 2012, Enriquiz-Santiago, Ferguson and Carillo attacked and beat Kless to death on the corner of 4th and Chestnut Street while he was trying to hail a cab.
Attorney for Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky, PC, Michael Barrett says it's time for the bars to own up to their responsibility in Kless' death.
“Kevin Kless did not deserve to die and the time has come to hold Lucy’s Hat Shop and G Lounge responsible and accountable for their actions as they relate to his senseless and premature death,” Barrett said.
The lawsuit claims that in describing the typical weekend crowd at Lucy's, the bar's general manager indicated: "'80% of them are having fun. I would say maybe 20 percent are beyond the point of maybe they don't know what they're doing.' Mr. Ellis has further indicated that the 20% of the crowd that 'don't know what they're doing has had too much to drink and 'maybe they can't control their how -- control their balance.'"
A check of records on the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board's website shows that since 1999, Lucy's has been cited five times that resulted in more than $3,500 in fines.
Lucy's was ordered to pay $2,000 fine in 2006 for serving alcohol to a minor, illegally operating gambling devices, and permitting lewd or improper entertainment for bar patrons.
Managers for Lucy's Hat Shop and G Lounge were unavailable for comment at the time of publication.
Pennsylvania state law prohibits any establishment from selling or giving any liquor, malt, or brewed beverages, to any person that is visibly intoxicated.
Fines for serving alcohol to intoxicated persons in Pennsylvania can range from as little as $50 to as much as $5,000, according the state's liquor control code. According to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report, the State only imposes jail sentences to licensees in violation of its liquor control laws if fines are not paid.
Authorities are searching for a carjacked medical services vehicle that had radioactive medical waste inside.
The car, which is operated by medical services company Cardinal Health, was stolen at gunpoint along the 200 block of Mill Street in Darby, Pa. around 1:30 p.m. Friday, according to Darby Borough Police.
"We believe they thought there were narcotics in the car and they were getting away with something of some value," said Darby Borough Police Chief Robert Smythe.
Sylvester Porters, a Cardinal Health employee, was about to walk into his home when he was approached by a man brandishing a gun. That suspect jumped into the Cardinal Health vehicle and headed south toward Philadelphia, Smythe said.
Porters and his mother talked with NBC10 at their Mill Street home. "He could have been killed. So you have to calm down, it was a shock," said Arnsie Riley, mother.
Porters didn't have much to say except he's doing just fine.
The car, which is described as a 2014 white Toyota Matrix, has the Pennsylvania license plate JFP-505. It also has the numbers 13083 on the left rear of the car and may have a 5x8-inch emergency medical sticker on the back window.
A second suspect, who was waiting in a black Pontiac Bonneville, sped off in a different direction.
Chief Smythe said the Cardinal Health car was carrying six syringes that contained spent radioactive medicine. The medicine is used in diagnostic imaging. The syringes are stored inside canisters marked "radioactive material."
Police were able to track the carjacker for a short time by following a GPS signal coming from an iPad inside the vehicle. However, the suspect realized he was being tracked and threw the iPad out the window at 63rd Street and Glenmore Avenue in Philadelphia, police said.
Because of the materials inside, Darby Borough Police called in the Philadelphia Police's Homeland Security Unit to assist in the investigation.
Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan said they do not believe that the medical waste is harmful any longer, but that officials would like to inspect the syringes to ensure everything is safe.
In a statement, Cardinal Health said there is no risk to the public.
"There was a small amount of radiopharmaceuticals in the car used for medical purposes in diagnostic imaging in the human body," SVP for Public Relations Debbie Mitchell said.
Police are asking anyone that may come across the waste to not be alarmed, but also not touch it and immediately call 911.
Police believe the suspects, who are considered armed and dangerous, targeted the Cardinal Health employee believing the car contained narcotics.
The carjacker is described as an African-American man, with a small build and afro-style hair wearing a gray t-shirt and blue jeans. The alleged accomplice is described as dark skinned African-American man.
The investigation is on-going.
Here is an image of a similar type of vehicle to the one that was carjacked.
Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.
A former fire marshal and emergency coordinator who served as treasurer for the Upper Gwynedd Township Fire Company was arrested for allegedly stealing $250,000 from the department.
Ronald Kenneth "Ken" Nolan was arrested Friday when he turned himself into police following a detailed investigation.
Nolan is accused of stealing a quarter of a million dollars over the course of six years -- from 2006 until 2012, although he served as treasurer for 24.
Investigators say that Nolan took $116,000 in cash from the nonprofit fire company's bank accounts and the rest of the stolen funds were linked to two department credit cards that Nolan used to buy trips to Miami, Reno, Jamaica and 15 trips to Vegas. He's accused of buying those Vegas trips for his daughter's wedding guests.
He also used fire company money to purchase jewelry, computers and other luxuries, according to Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman.
NBC10's Deanna Dureante says that some of the stolen funds were taxpayer's money, although how much has not been determined.
Nolan was voted out as treasurer in December 2012. It was then that the new treasurer began to look into the department's finances. He quickly discovered inconsistencies and alerted the proper authorities who have been investigating Mr. Nolan since last summer.
The firefighter was arraigned earlier this morning. He facing a variety of theft charges.
One thing you can usually count on when going to the doctor is getting put on a scale. And if you tip that scale into the overweight range on the standard "body mass index (BMI)" charts, you can count on a suggestion to lose a few pounds.
Just how scientific is that BMI chart and the recommendations doctors draw from it? If you are 6 feet tall and weigh 200 pounds, the chart says you're overweight, but how certain can your doctor be that you'll live longer if you shed 10 or 20 pounds?
As it turns out, the obesity research community is currently at war over the issue – and it grew heated earlier this year when The Journal of the American Medical Association published a study by the CDC that followed more than two million people and found fewer deaths among those deemed overweight than those in the normal range. To some doctors, it seemed shocking and paradoxical, since excess fat has been strongly associated with diabetes, cardiovascular disease, fatty liver disease, sleep apnea and other health hazards.
Today in the journal Science, two University of Pennsylvania researchers weighed in with a rational, middle-ground explanation for what's come to be called the "obesity paradox". Mitchell Lazar and Rexford Ahima of the division of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the Perelman School of Medicine argued that doctors are on the right track to associate obesity with diabetes and other health problems, but the revered BMI charts don't give doctors complete information, and the healthy weight range may differ from patient to patient.
The crux of the Penn researchers' argument is that BMI is calculated using only height and weight. It can't discriminate between a powerfully built linebacker from a pot-bellied TV watcher. And studies in the last few years have shown that fat is like real estate – it's all about location. Fat in the belly is much more strongly associated with heart problems and diabetes that the fat on curvaceous hips and behinds.
To doctors steeped in their weight charts and attached to their balance scales, the CDC results and this Penn paper may seem a lot more paradoxical than they are to the rest of us. Most non-doctors know when we look at a person whether he or she appears healthy. Evolutionary psychologists have shown that most of us are wired to be good at assessing the health and fertility of the opposite sex, which we interpret as attractiveness. And their studies have shown that we deem people attractive based more on proportions than on weight as long as they aren't emaciated or obese.
For women it's all about the ratio of the waist to the hips, and for men the shoulders figure into it. There are body types that look good to people across diverse cultures, and evolutionary psychologists have suggested those attractive proportions signal something about overall health – something that can't be measured with a body mass index.
It's important to note here that the medical community had the broad outlines right. Through the 20th century, life insurance companies collected data on weight, height, and mortality with a strong self-interest in predicting who was likely to die. And they found that being extremely overweight was in fact associated with earlier death. But there were hints that the connection between weight and lifespan wasn't simple – according to this fascinating news story in Nature, one insurance company researcher found that if you look at people under 50, the overweight were likely to die earlier than the thin, but if you looked at those over 50, the overweight (but not obese) lived longer.
One of the big complications in assessing the dangers of fat is that cause and effect are all mixed up. Your weight has a bearing on your health, but your health can also have a big bearing on your weight. Having cancer or some other serious illness may cause people to lose weight. And smoking can make people less healthy and at the same time, slimmer.
One thing that made the latest CDC "obesity paradox" study so noteworthy was that the researchers attempted to correct for the obviously unhealthy slimming effects of smoking and cancer. But other researchers still don't believe it. Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard University followed up with a different study that seemed to contradict the CDC's work by showing those in the normal range were indeed the healthiest. But in that intersting news story from Nature, the lead researcher on the CDC paper, Katherine Flegal, noted some differences in their methods.
...What is more, says Flegal, Willett's study relies on participants' self-reported heights and weights, rather than objective measures. "It's a huge deal," Flegal says, because people tend to underestimate how much they weigh. This could skew death risks upwards if, for example, people who are obese and at high risk say that they are merely overweight.
It's not that people will necessarily lie but they might tend to round down or remember their lowest weight measurement over the last year or five.
There may be a deep philosophical difference causing the rift between researchers. It's engrained in our culture to believe that those who go through the hard work of dieting and exercising to achieve thinness should be rewarded with good health and a long life. It seems so unfair to think that dumb luck plays a big role - that the genes we're stuck with determine whether we get nice subcutaneous fat that makes us look shapely or at least cuddly, or dangerous "visceral" fat that surrounds our vital organs with a toxic, inflammatory envelope.
But if that's the way life is, the medical community needs to face it, and Penn's Lazar says that's the direction we're going. As medicine becomes more sophisticated, doctors will use other data – waist measurements, blood sugar, cholesterol, markers of inflammation, relevant hormones and other measures to complement the traditional BMI in determining which of their patients will really benefit from losing weight and how much weight they should lose.
Here's how Penn's Lazar puts it in his Science paper:
"The optimal weight that is predictive of health status and mortality is likely to be dependent on age, sex, genetics, cardiometabolic fitness, pre-exiting diseases and other factors. To quote Galileo, measure what can be measured and make measurable what cannot be measured."
This story was reported through a news coverage partnership between NBC10.com and NewsWorks.org
It's been nearly 10 months since Superstorm Sandy and for some of the people living in the hardest hit areas, life hasn't quite returned to normal.
Besides concerns over rebuilding and repairing damages, some New Jersey residents are worried about their health.
“A few weeks after I had a lung infection," said Denise Hansen, of Ortley Beach, N.J.
In the weeks and months following the October storm, many people were exposed to irritants including mold and asbestos.
Today, dozens of people living in Ocean County, including first responders, received free respiratory and cardiac screenings from Deborah Heart and Lung Center.
This is the 9th time the hospital has offered these free screenings to people in the area.
Laureen Bogdan, of Lavallette, N.J., tells NBC10's Ted Greenberg that Sandy left 52 inches of water in her basement. Today, Bodgan was one of the many people who got screened.
“I figured let me check, just in case because the mold was growing," said Bogdan.
Depending on the results, some of the people are being urged to follow up with their own doctor.
“We truly have to wait until all the data collection is in and then decide whether or not there is some impact from the storm," said Donna McArdle of the Deborah Heart & Lung Center.
The hospital has screened about 400 people, and based on the results, about 14% of them were urged to follow up with their own doctors.
Deborah plans to expand the screenings to Monmouth County in October.
Safe Haven Animal Sanctuary's struggles to balance its no-kill philosophy with its animal control duties begs the question, "Is Delaware ready to be a no-kill state?"
Kent County has since terminated its contract with the Georgetown shelter, effective Oct. 1, but Safe Haven says it lost the contract not because it was doing a bad job, but because it took on too much too soon.
Safe Haven's interim executive director, Bob Burakiewicz, says the shelter took on Kent County's animal control contract a month after opening its doors. In the first six months, animal control officers brought in 140 dogs and Safe Haven just couldn't keep up. Burakiewicz says the shelter accrued $200,000 in debt; private kenneling for some of the dogs accounted for $53,000 of it.
"There's a business side to running a nonprofit organization. And so there was a clash of culture from saving every animal and fiscal responsibility," said Kevin Usilton, executive director of Kent County SPCA.
Usilton's shelter handles animal control for New Castle and Sussex Counties and is not no-kill. At one time, Kent County SPCA handled animal control statewide. Usilton says while the contracts are big money, the expenses add up.
"Every day you have to house the animal, is a day you have to feed it, clean it, take care of it, if it gets sick you have to give it medicine."
Considered a pioneer of the no-kill movement in Delaware, Jane Pierantozzi argues just because Safe Haven couldn't make it work, doesn't mean it's impossible.
"It was good intentions that [Safe Haven] had to step in, but it was too soon for them in the development of their organization," Pierantozzi said. "If you look right now, there's about 400 communities... no-kill communities where animal control is going on."
Under no-kill, any animal that is adoptable, trainable or medically treatable, within reason, is saved.
Shelters that are no-kill have a 90 percent save rate, 10 percent euthanasia rate.
Pierantozzi believes Delaware could take that next step to become no-kill, especially since the state is in the process of setting up a state-run, state-funded Office of Animal Welfare.
According to the state, the new office will consolidate all animal-related issues like researching best practices for dog control management, setting up a statewide database for lost pets and overseeing the state's shelter standards law, which requires shelters to fill any empty cage and exhaust all other options before euthanizing an animal.
Usilton, however, worries about the impact the new agency will have on shelters throughout the state.
"You have created this office with no enforcement and no real funding to even help animal welfare so what are they gonna do? They're gonna write new legislation for the nonprofit to have to absorb,"
Usilton said. "So it's gonna be more unfunded mandates, which essentially, is going to force more animal welfare organizations to go under because we won't be able to comply with the regulations."
Usilton says unless the state assumes responsibility for a well-resourced, well-funded animal control program, that includes all animals, not just dogs, Delaware is not ready to be no-kill.
"You can only be no-kill if the community cares, controls, and properly houses and has a respectful relationship with animals. Our community is not there yet," Usilton said.
"I do think it's going to take leadership from the new office and the governor's office to help us put some of the differences aside and say, 'Can we all agree that we want a no-kill state and why it's important for our community to have that,'" Pierantozzi said. "When other communities are doing it and they're the same size as our state, there's no reason why we can't do it."
New no-kill shelter
Next month, the City of Wilmington is scheduled to handle its own animal control, after the Delaware SPCA decided it would no longer do so. The Delaware SPCA went no-kill in 2009 and made the decision to end its century-long relationship with the city last summer, saying it was "financially unfeasible," for the shelter to maintain both.
Leonard Sophrin, Wilmington Mayor Dennis Williams' policy director, is overseeing the project. Word on the street is the city will build a $250,000 no-kill shelter, either on A or Walnut Streets, and operate on a $150,000 annual budget. Delaware SPCA's contract with the city was $250,000.
Sophrin would not confirm whether the shelter would be no-kill or its location, only saying he did not want to comment until next month, when more things, presumably, would be in place.
Safe Haven Update
Safe Haven's interim executive director says the shelter's goal is to have zero dogs, zero cats and zero debt by Sept. 30.
Director Bob Burakiewicz says the shelter has already reached its cat goal and is making progress where its dogs are concerned. From a high of 220 dogs, the shelter had about 139 dogs still up for adoption as of last week.
Meantime, Kent County SPCA says it's currently reviewing the contract the county had with Safe Haven.
This story was reported through a news coverage partnership between NBC10.com and NewsWorks.org
