To be humane, they need a gun:PSPCA agents face dangers daily from the most dangerous animal - the human one

ANIMAL-CRUELTY agent George Bengal didn't expect to end up struggling for a gun with a 15-year-old when he went to a house in Kensington looking for some ailing dogs.

Bengal, director of law enforcement for the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and another agent found one of the dogs dead and a second near death last summer at the house, on Kip Street.

They were unaware that a stolen gun was stashed under a sofa until they encountered a 15-year-old-boy, who walked to the couch, sat down and reached under it.

Bengal quickly dragged the boy off the couch and then grabbed the gun.

He said that the youth had served a year in a juvenile facility for assault on a police officer, was living in the house "pretty much by himself" and didn't want to go back to jail.

"He thought he could possibly shoot his way out," Bengal, a former Philadelphia police officer, said.

It's because of cases like this - and an increasingly violent atmosphere nationwide surrounding dogfighting, cockfighting and the drugs, guns and big money that surround them - that the PSPCA board voted last month to allow cruelty investigators to carry guns themselves, for self protection, said Howard Nelson, CEO of the animal-welfare agency.

Agents first must undergo training and certification, Nelson said.

They are expected to start going armed in March or April.

"Clearly there's liability in carrying a weapon," Nelson said, and an investigation would take place anytime a weapon was fired.

"If they're [agents] facing a life-threatening situation, we face a risk either way," he said.

"We've found the actual act of responding to a call in full uniform with a badge already escalates the situation," Nelson said.

Bengal doesn't believe that there's a danger to innocent bystanders or others. "That's what the training is for, so the officer will not be shooting any innocent victim," he said.

"These weapons are strictly for self defense," Bengal said. "These weapons are not to be used to enforce any animal-cruelty law."

Bengal said that he had been menaced with a knife, assaulted and shot at when he worked with the Women's Humane Society before it moved from Philadelphia to Bucks County. He has been with the PSPCA nearly two years.

The PSPCA has eight humane investigators in Philadelphia and six in other parts of the state.

Philadelphia Police Commissioer Charles Ramsey said that as long as the humane officers were properly trained and certified, arming them was "not an issue as far as I'm concerned."

Nelson said that most of the humane agencies in large cities now arm their agents. New York City and Los Angeles are among them. Others, like Houston, do not.

Officials of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which enforces animal-welfare law in New York City, and SPCA LA, which handles cases in Los Angeles, said that no one had ever been shot by an armed humane officer in either place. Two dogs were killed in New York City, one by an officer cornered on a roof, years back, an ASPCA official said.

An attacker was Tasered by an officer in Los Angeles, said SPCA LA president Madeline Bernstein.

Despite growing violence associated with animal fighting, some cities have "strict policies against carrying weapons," said an official of the Humane Society of the United States.

"Our general interest in this issue is that anyone carrying any kind of a weapon out in the field, whether gun, pepper spray, baton or Taser, needs to be fully trained in how that weapon works, and fully trained in use-of-force policy," said Cory Smith, of the HSUS.

In Washington, D.C., Scott Giacoppo, chief programs officer for the Washington Humane Society, says that he can see both the pros and cons of armed agents. Humane officers do not carry guns in D.C.

Giacoppo formerly worked as a humane officer in Massachusetts, where animal-cruelty agents are part of the state police force, have the power to arrest and are armed.

"When I go out unarmed, I'm not that big a threat - it's not so confrontational," Giacoppo said of the argument against humane agents carrying guns..

On the other hand, he said, "If I'm without a firearm and I'm talking to someone and they suddenly pull out a firearm, I'm defenseless."

D.C. agents are trained in conflict resolution, he said. But sometimes they just have to back off and call the police.

Carrying guns is "not something we're looking into, but I wouldn't close the door on that option," in Washington, Giacoppo said.

Philadelphia police accompany cruelty investigators when they serve search warrants. The humane agents wear bulletproof vests in such cases, as well as raids and undercover work.

But search warrants "are a small part of our work," Nelson said.

"We conduct over 8,000 investigations each year, and our agents enter situations every day that are dangerous.

"The police do not have the resources to provide protection on each investigation for each agent.

"Danger can arise, and does arise, in seconds while in alleys [or] knocking on suspect's doors, and many cases start as simple investigations or calls and, immediately turned violent," Nelson said.

At least two PSPCA agents were assaulted last year, and one had to have trauma counseling, according to Bengal.

Nelson said that in another instance, two agents responding to a simple complaint of "dogs abandoned in a back yard" were cornered by a "gang of young adults . . . in a dangerous neighborhood in a remote alley."

"The abandoned dogs turned out to be dogs hidden for a pit-bull fight later that night," Nelson said.

The agents ran, and then called police, he said.

"Over the last five years, things have definitely gotten worse," Bengal said.

Nelson formerly headed the Washington Humane Society and although D.C. has its problems, Nelson said that he was "very surprised at the level of danger, [at] the severity of the situation," when he arrived in Philadelphia in March 2007.

"The number, size and sophistication of the dog-fighting rings [here] alarmed me," he said.

Nelson suggested that dogfighting may have increased "post Michael Vick," either because of a "copycat" mentality or because times are tough and "there's a lot of money involved." *