By Bonnie Culverhouse
In an effort to control vicious animals and their owners, Webster Parish Police Jury is sharing authority with Minden City Council – something that has been limited in the past.
“There are some pretty good rules in the state statute about dogs,” Minden Mayor Nick Cox told the council during a recent workshop. “We (city) are given some authority in the statute as a municipal animal control. But we’re not given all of it like the parish is.”
Cox said the parish has the “right to make a judgment on the status of an animal, and if it should be put down or not.”
After talking with Jim Bonsall, president of the Webster Parish Police Jury, Cox said WPPJ placed on their meeting agenda and passed a public service agreement with the city.
“The parish government has certain statutory authority that the cities don’t have. They have an active animal control program and don’t have the unique power we have to handle vicious animals,” said Parish Attorney Patrick Jackson. “This basically delegates, at no cost to the parish, that authority, so they can handle vicious animals. You all have seen the recent horror story out of Bienville Parish. They are probably wanting to get ahead of it and not have that kind of thing happen here.”
The Bienville Parish Sheriff’s department made four arrests this past October and seized 26 dogs from a premises in Ringgold city limits. The arrests were in connection to human remains found on Pine Street of a Ringgold man that had reportedly been missing since a month prior to the discovery.
The same dogs were also responsible for the hospitalization of another Ringgold man, Davyta Gray, in late September.
An attack at a residence in Minden in October 2023, spurred the council to take action to ensure safety to people and animals.
Minden Animal Control is now under authority of the police department.
Police Chief Jared McIver asked the council to research ordinances that may supersede state law.
“Our ordinances refer to state law for penalties,” McIver pointed out. “It would be good if we could look at stiffening our penalties.”
With this agreement, Cox said MPD has full leverage to handle vicious animal situations.
“We definitely need to update our city ordinances on this,” Cox said. “Some of them are weak, but some of them are too strong. We need to find some very reasonable but firm ground and make it easier to make a judgment call on it. This is just one step.”
State ordinance 102.16 reads a dog may be seized if an officer is arresting the owner. Also, a dog determined to be vicious by the court would be humanely euthanized if it poses an immediate threat to public health and safety. (State Revised Statute 3:2773 defines vicious dogs.)
“This will give us the authority to more humanely handle it,” said the mayor.