Dereliction of Duty: Skid Row and the Moral Collapse of LA Animal Services
Skid Row’s animal crisis lays bare the legal and moral failure of Mayor Bass’s administration.
The soul of Skid Row is unraveling in slow motion. Amid the tents and tattered tarps of the city’s most visible humanitarian crisis, a parallel catastrophe unfolds: dogs—many of them sick, starving, or brutalized—are dying in plain sight. The agency entrusted to protect them, Los Angeles Animal Services, is nowhere to be found.
The Dogs No One Sees
Step onto the sidewalks of Skid Row, and the evidence of institutional neglect is immediate. Pit bulls confined in wire crates swelter beneath plastic sheets, panting in the midday sun without food or water. Others limp through trash-strewn streets, open wounds untreated, ribs protruding. Some are barely clinging to life—casualties of dogfighting, overdose, or disease.
Many dogs have become commodities. Puppies are bred and sold like merchandise. Older dogs are swapped like currency. Some are used by dealers to test fentanyl’s lethality—often with fatal results. Others are exposed to methamphetamine or fentanyl as a grotesque form of entertainment or experimentation. These aren’t rumors. They’re documented cases—captured by frontline nonprofits like Starts With One Today*, led by Joey Tuccio and Victoria Parker.
Their volunteers have pulled dogs with ruptured spleens, rotting tumors, and bones poking through flesh. “These animals suffer in silence,” Parker said. “Until someone steps in—or they die.”
A Legal System in Freefall
California’s penal code is unequivocal: animal cruelty—neglect, abuse, abandonment—is a criminal offense. LA Animal Services has the authority to investigate, seize animals in distress, and press charges. Yet on Skid Row, the law collapses into a jurisdictional void.
Calls to 311 are bounced to LAPD. LAPD redirects to Animal Services. Neither shows up.
Organized dogfights are reported regularly—hidden in plain sight. Witnesses describe LAPD officers observing blatant abuse without intervening. Sources close to City Hall admit that officials are hesitant to act for fear of appearing punitive toward unhoused residents. In the process, cruelty is decriminalized—not by law, but by inertia.
The regular presence of luxury vehicles parked along Skid Row raises additional questions about outside involvement and organized exploitation—activity that would be swiftly prosecuted anywhere else in the city.
Animal advocate Rebecca Corry, founder of the Stand Up For Pits Foundation*, has long condemned what she sees as a double standard in how Los Angeles enforces animal cruelty laws. She points out that similar abuse in affluent neighborhoods would trigger immediate intervention and media scrutiny—yet on Skid Row, it is tolerated as background noise.
In public statements, LA Animal Services cites homelessness, overcrowding, and staff shortages as obstacles. But advocates see these as excuses—thin veils for a deeper institutional failure.
Even the city’s own website acknowledges that animal cruelty reflects “a severe lack of moral responsibility and social conscience.” On Skid Row, that responsibility is abandoned—by the very officials sworn to uphold it.
When Animal Abuse Becomes a Human Issue
This isn’t just about dogs. Study after study confirms the link between animal cruelty and human violence. Abuse is rarely contained. It metastasizes—into domestic violence, child abuse, community trauma. Inaction on Skid Row isn’t just immoral. It’s dangerous.
Every time the city fails to act, it sends a message: cruelty is tolerable—so long as it’s out of sight, or committed by the unhoused, or too complex to address cleanly.
The Path Forward Is Clear
If LA Animal Services intends to fulfill its legal and moral mandate, it must:
Deploy animal control officers to Skid Row now—not in six months, not after another committee meeting.
Collaborate with frontline organizations already on the ground to triage suffering animals.
File criminal charges against individuals breeding, abusing, or trafficking animals.
Integrate animal protection into broader homelessness strategies, because the suffering is intertwined.
A Line in the Sand
The eyes of the nation are on Los Angeles—not just because of its celebrity or politics, but because it claims to be a progressive capital of compassion. A city of angels.
So far, that compassion hasn’t reached Skid Row.
Mayor Bass, City Council, LA Animal Services: how many more dogs must die under tarps before you act? This isn’t a funding or policy issue. It’s political cowardice—plain and simple.
Los Angeles failed its elephants. It failed in the fires. Here is your chance to get something right. History will remember what you chose to do—or refused to do—on Skid Row.
Call to Action: Stand Up for Skid Row’s Animals
The suffering on Skid Row is a test of Los Angeles’ conscience—but it’s also a reflection of what we, as a society, are willing to accept.
If you love Los Angeles—as a resident, visitor, artist, entrepreneur, animal lover, or global citizen who believes in compassion—your voice matters.
City leaders need to hear that this crisis is not invisible. Not forgotten. Not acceptable.
Whether you live in LA or have ever walked its streets, vacationed along its coast, done business in its boardrooms, or admired its culture from afar—now is the moment to speak up.
Contact Mayor Karen Bass:
Address: 200 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Phone: (213) 978-0600
Email: mayor.helpdesk@lacity.org
Contact the Los Angeles City Council:
General Address: 200 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Main Phone: (213) 473-7000
Find and email your Councilmember directly:
District 1 (Eunisses Hernandez): councilmember.hernandez@lacity.org
District 2 (Adrin Nazarian): councilmember.krekorian@lacity.org
District 3 (Bob Blumenfield): councilmember.blumenfield@lacity.org
District 4 (Nithya Raman): contactCD4@lacity.org
District 5 (Katy Young Yaroslavsky): councilwoman.yaroslavsky@lacity.org
District 6 (Imelda Padilla): councilmember.padilla@lacity.org
District 7 (Monica Rodriguez): councilmember.rodriguez@lacity.org
District 8 (Marqueece Harris-Dawson): councilmember.harris-dawson@lacity.org
District 9 (Curren Price, Jr.): councilmember.price@lacity.org
District 10 (Heather Hutt): cd10@lacity.org
District 11 (Traci Park): councilmember.park@lacity.org
District 12 (John Lee): councilmember.lee@lacity.org
District 13 (Hugo Soto-Martinez): councilmember.soto-martinez@lacity.org
District 14 (Kevin de León): councilmember.kevindeleon@lacity.org
District 15 (Tim McOsker): councilmember.mcosker@lacity.org
Take Action:
Call, write, or email Mayor Bass and your Councilmember today.
Demand immediate enforcement of animal cruelty laws on Skid Row.
Attend the protest rally organized by Starts With One Today* on Saturday, June 8, 2025, from 11 a.m. to noon at 251 East 6th Street, outside the Central Community Police Station in Los Angeles. Supporters are encouraged to attend, bring signs, and help raise public and media awareness to ensure the city enforces animal welfare laws and protects vulnerable animals.
Let Los Angeles know the world is watching—and will not look away.
Because how a city treats its most vulnerable says everything about its soul.
Dogs are suffering and dying on Skid Row. It’s time to choose compassion.
* Starts With One Today provides direct outreach and animal rescue services on Skid Row. The Stand Up For Pits Foundation advocates nationally for pit bull–type dogs. Both organizations are active 501(c)(3) nonprofits that have played key roles in exposing the animal suffering on Skid Row. As with any organization, readers are encouraged to learn more before engaging or contributing.
Ed Boks is a former Executive Director of the New York City, City of Los Angeles, and Maricopa County Animal Care & Control Departments, and a former Board Director of the National Animal Control Association. His work has been published in the LA Times, New York Times, Newsweek, Real Clear Policy, Sentient Media, and now on Animal Politics with Ed Boks.
Stay Informed
For more analysis and updates on the evolving landscape of animal welfare policy, visit Animal Politics with Ed Boks.
This is so horrifying that it hard for me to read it. Ed, I know you are not saying this, but the implication here, that if someone is unhoused that we cannot expect them to treat animals humanely, is patronizing and ridiculous. An unhoused person may have a little to no food to give to their pup, but that doesn't explain or justify brutalizing them. I am so tired of hearing people make excuses for the cruelty of so many humans. Let's not deprive them of agency, they still make choices
I don't doubt the suffering of the animals on skid row. But the generated image with a caption saying"Two emaciated strays navigate Skid Row—alone, starving, and abandoned by the City of Angels." is frankly, offensive and deceptive. At least notify readers you are using AI to create graphics, or get an actual photo of the plight of these animals in need.