Pit bull owner claims race discrimination

http://www.oceanahe raldjournal. com/news. php?story_ id=24563

[size=-3]Posted: 4-12-2007[/size]
[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]Pit bull owner claims race discrimination[/font] [font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]Sues Claybanks Township, zoning board, and 9 individuals[/font]
[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]By John Cavanagh [/font][font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]Herald-Journal Writer [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]CLAYBANKS — Discrimination, conspiracy and malicious prosecution over the keeping of numerous pit bull dogs are claims a father and son have made in a three-count lawsuit filed against Claybanks Township, its zoning board and nine individuals. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif] [/font][font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]Joseph R. Schulze of Montague, and his son, Joseph E. Schulze of Claybanks, filed the suit in 27th Circuit Court Feb. 23. The suit says Joseph E. Schulze is African American and that a January 2007 township suit is “a continuation of defendants’ series of conspiratorial acts designed to deprive Joseph E. Schulze of due process by reason of Joseph E. Schulze’s race.” [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]He wants ordinances voided, and seeks more than $25,000 in damages plus attorney fees. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]“We have no idea (why the suit was filed.) I have no idea how it got there. Nobody I know of cares (about his race,)” Claybanks Supervisor Richard Smith said. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]The township and Joseph E. Schulze have battled for years over the keeping of what has been said to have been as many as 60 dogs. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]In addition to the township, the suit names Smith, Bret Osterhart, Tom Osterhart, Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Hoffmeyer, Al Olson, Jill Verhulst, Gordon Verhulst, and a woman named Carol, last name unknown. Smith said the named individuals are property owners within 300 feet of Schulze’s property and at a public hearing opposed Schulze’s special use permit request to keep the animals. The case was assigned to Judge Terrence Thomas. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]The Schulzes are represented by attorney Wallace Parker, a chief counsel to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Oakland County. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]According to Parker, Joseph E. Schulze is the adopted son of Joseph R. Schulze. He said both were previously named in a suit by the township, but the suit against Joseph R. Schulze was ultimately dropped because he didn’t have interest in the property. Parker said R. Schulze is Caucasian. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif] Joseph E. Schulze began collecting dogs after taking in an injured animal and nursing it back to health, Parker said. He later began taking in a number of abandoned and discarded animals and started a rescue shelter on E. Schulze’s property at 7960 48th Ave. [/font]
[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif] [/font][font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]Parker said E. Schulze is not breeding the animals. Because the area is zoned agricultural, Parker said E. Schulze should be allowed to keep as many dogs as he wants just as farmers can keep livestock, providing E. Schulze is not violating any laws. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]According to Parker, there have been no complaints or allegations that E. Schulze’s dogs have hurt or attacked anyone. Parker said Schulze has been jailed because of the dogs; and the township has been mean and rude toward him. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]“He’s done all of this trying to save the lives of these dogs,” Parker said. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]According to the complaint, the township in August 2003 enacted an animal control ordinance, making it a crime to possess more than six dogs over 4 months old without a special use permit. E. Schulze already had some dogs at that time. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]“I think these people are not looking at it appropriately,” Parker said. “You look at the basis — is it because of the animals?” [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]According to the complaint, the animal control ordinance was followed by a dangerous animal ordinance, making it even more difficult for E. Schulze to keep more than six dogs. It says the law made it a misdemeanor to keep pit bulls as pets or even to possess pit bull dogs for boarding, breeding, training or sale unless stringent ordinance requirements are followed. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]The complaint also alleges that E. Schulze resubmitted for a special use permit in September 2006 to keep dogs as pets and as a kennel, but the township attorney threatened to enforce the dangerous animal ordinance to discourage him from pursuing the permit. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]The complaint also says that prior to December 2003, there were no regulations. The suit alleges Claybanks authorities made several inspections to the E. Schulze property, but refused or failed to enforce ordinances at other kennels. It further alleges that in January 2007 E. Schulze informed the board that if it didn’t take action on the special use permit request, that he would take legal action. It claims the township responded by filing another dangerous animal complaint against him. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]The complaint further alleges that the ordinances are void because: [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]• they’re after-the-fact laws that punish an act that was not punishable at the time it was committed. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]• they irrefutably deem pit bulls as dangerous animals and irrefutably deem a person possessing pit bulls as guilty. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]• violate due process [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]• violate rights to equal protection under the law [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]• deprive right to possess a property without due process of the law [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]• deprive right to use property [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]• is selectively enforced because E. Schulze is African American. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]The complaint also alleges that there are other kennels within a 3-mile radius of the defendants, and there have been no noise and declining property value complaints to the township regarding those kennels; and that the township never threatened to enforce or inspect other kennels “because the owners or operators of these kennels are white people.” [/font]

 

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]The suit alleges the defendants conspired to make false report to the township about the alleged “danger, noise and or devaluation of their respective properties as a result of more than six dogs maintained by Joseph E. Schulze within the 20-acre property.” [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]According to the complaint, Joseph E. Schulze has spent more than $25,000 to house the animals elsewhere and it cost more than $1,000 per week to continue housing them. Parker said currently there are only six dogs on the property. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]The suit further claims another result of township lawsuits is that E. Schulze was forced to take an early retirement from his Muskegon School District job, and that claims of threatened enforcement, harassing and unannounced inspections have caused E. Schulze to suffer humiliation, anxiety, indignity, moral torture and mental revulsion and emotional distress. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]Smith said he and sheriff’s Deputy Roy Strait last June received court permission to make unannounced property inspections during daylight hours. According to Smith, two inspections were made, and both times Schulze had more than six dogs. Because Schulze had the dogs prior to the township enacting an ordinance, Smith said Schulze would have been grandfathered to keep them if the dogs were not known for being dangerous. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]“We feel we have a health and safety issue in the township with an unknown number of pit bulls just chained out in the field,” Smith said, adding Schulze has done nothing to change the property, there’s no fence and no kennels. “The people out here are nervous.” [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]The township’s formal response has not yet been filed with the court. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]“We’re happy to go to trial,” Smith said. “We’re not trying to deprive anybody their rights as an American. We want the public in Claybanks Township to feel safe when they’re there.” [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]In a separate suit filed March 15, Joseph E. Schulze claims the township will not schedule a public hearing on another special use permit request, and is asking the court to order one. [/font]

[font=Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif]After the township replies, a court date will be set. [/font]

 

If the people are so nervous about his "pit-bulls" being chained in a field maybe they should stay the fuck off his property.This enrages me,Im glad he's fighting back against this harrasment.So the guy has a rescue,if it were poodle or beagle rescue no one would give a shit.There was no mention of abuse or neglect ,the bastards would just rathar see the bulldogs dead.Damn im going to stop now as im getting more angry the more i think about it.