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The NJ cobra bite just became much more interesting.

Fair Lawn animal control officer fired over releasing cobra pictures
Borough Manager Tim Stafford fired Animal Control Officer Rich DuBarton on Friday, days after he released photos and video to the media of an albino cobra that bit a borough resident.

PHOTO COURTESY OF RICH DUBARTON
Fair Lawn Animal Control Officer Rich DuBarton was fired for releasing photos and video to the media, including this one of a cobra that bit a borough resident. "I'm an animal control officer," DuBarton said. "I'm supposed to educate the public. No one ever told me I wasn't allowed to."

DuBarton was the animal control officer who responded to the River Road apartment of 25-year-old Eric Bortz on Jan. 31 after he was bit by an albino Monacled Cobra. Bortz had purchased the cobra in Pennsylvania the previous weekend.

DuBarton, a former Marine, was employed by the borough as a part-time animal control officer. He is also a certified police K-9 instructor and an animal control officer for Bergen County.

According to DuBarton, Stafford chastised him over the phone following the release of the photos and video, claiming he "had no right." DuBarton said he received a termination letter on Feb. 4 from Stafford, which did not provide a reason for the termination.

"I guess he didn't like someone stealing his thunder," DuBarton said.

Borough and police officials declined multiple media requests for pictures and video of the snakes confiscated from Bortz's residence including the albino Monacled Cobra, Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake and copperhead snake.

DuBarton indicated that borough officials have previously sought to keep the public in the dark about important information. He cited previous actions by Carol Wagner, the director of the health department, who allegedly told animal control officers not to inform residents as to the five cases of rabies last year.

Wagner disputed DuBarton's claim.

"I never said that," Wagner said.

Wagner said she could not comment why the media was not allowed to take pictures and video of the cobra because the police department's information officer, Sgt. Richard Schultz, was put in charge of releasing information to the media.

She also stated that the borough was not attempting to shut down the animal control division of the health department.

Stafford did not return calls requesting comment. Schultz was unavailable for comment.
www.northjersey.com/community/115316704_Fair_Lawn_Animal_Control_Officer_fired_over_releasing_cobra_pictures.html

That seems to be standard procedure for many AC agencies.
Dog attacks are common in large cities. The cities enable such irresponsible owners by shielding then from negative publicity. This is accomplished by having all such incidents handled by the Animal Control Dept., which is sometimes a division of the Municipal Health Dept. This way, dog owners can commit what would be criminal acts, with their dogs and the police department does not get involved or respond to such incidents, due to the jurisdiction of the "Health Dept." Because the police dept. does not get involved, there are no police reports. Media publicity is generated from newspaper and TV news reporters reviewing police incident reports and then reporting on them. Health Dept. reports are not available to the media for review because they are shielded by another level of confidentiality. In my city, in order to obtain a case report on a dog attack, you are required to provide the exact street address of the dog owner, because, allegedly, that is how the reports are filed. Without a street address you cant get the report. Of course, the department can easily locate incident reports with just about any information on the case, the owners name, the dogs name, the date of the incident, victims name, etc. It's just that any member of the public has to provide the street address. This is just a hoop that the agency requires the general public to jump through in order to evade providing information, that ultimately is incriminating to the agency itself, because it exposes its laxity in dealing with dangerous animals. In doing this the Dept. of Health in my city, whose primary stated responsibility is to ensure public health and safety, actually endangers public safety by enabling the owners of dangerous dogs to keep their dogs, avoid bad publicity, and ultimately the responsibility for their crimes.

Ahwww...he messed up their story. Now the snake can't be 10 feet long and as big around as a man's calf...and fire breathing...of course!
jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

It seems wrong that public agencies would have a standard operating procedure of hiding information from the public, or making it very hard to obtain.
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www.hcu-tx.org/