El Paso County Sheriff’s Office: At this point, we do not have the legal right to seize the horses
Only our cameras captured bones and carcasses of more than a dozen horses in a Black Forest barn Friday.
Several others were terribly malnourished, with little food and water.
According to the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, the living horses are still in that same barn Sunday night.
“I would remind people a picture doesn’t tell the whole story,” Sgt. Greg White, a spokesman for the agency said. “We have to look at the whole picture when we go to these scenes and we have to determine: Do they have food and water?, which they did. At this point, we can’t legally seize the horses.”
Marty Jackson, a former animal cruelty investigator with the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, is pained by the images coming out of the barn.
We’re so close, we’re fiive miles from them,” Jackson said.
This equine expert now owns a hay bank in Black Forest.
“We could have fed these horses or helped them long term. Our grass has been so good this year in the fire areas. It’s really senseless.”
Members of the county’s mounted unit head the investigation.
“They do all of the investigations into horse neglect and abuse in the county of which we get quite a few on a routine basis,” White said. “I want people to understand if we would have seen something that was concerning to the point where we would seize the animal, we would have done it.”
But a Black Forest veterinarian wonders why someone with her training and experience wasn’t called in.
“They should call a vet to come in and have a physical done, council the people who are caring for these horses, inform them of proper feeding and health care,” Dr. Lise Andersen with Rocky Mountain Equine said.
“These horses, they depend on us,” Jackson said. “We put them in a pasture and they can’t fend for themselves. They leave it up to us to give them food, shelter and water and when they fail to do that, this is what happens.”
Raw emotion won’t hold up in court and legally the county cannot take the animals away from that environment.
White said the horse owners are cooperating with the investigation and vowed to clean up the barn.
Currently there are no charges pending in this case.
