Joey Tuccio is warning every Los Angeles council member that advocates are “coming for all of you” after a freeway encampment crackdown yielded dozens of arrests and the rescue of abused animals.
Tuccio, a longtime animal advocate, spent a week campaigning to expose illegal breeding and animal cruelty beneath the San Fernando Road overpass near the Sun Valley-Arleta border. He recorded video of a woman “pulling puppies out of a wooden box, saying that she’s selling them for $45, $100,” he told The California Post. “This is the dog’s fourth litter. The last litter all died.”
Councilwoman Imelda Padilla, who represents the district, confirmed Thursday that LAPD arrested more than 25 people during the sweeping enforcement operation. “We also have Animal Services here that is slowly but surely rescuing dogs, plenty of cats, as well as what we’ve discovered now, some chickens and some roosters,” Padilla announced in an Instagram video. “Today is the beginning of the end of this location being seen as a place for homeless individuals who are also engaging in illegal activity.”
The conditions Tuccio encountered shocked even an advocate accustomed to grim scenes. He and another volunteer had investigated reports of dogs living in drainage pipes and sewers. “While we’re there, they were telling us how somebody overdosed the day before and died. An RV was set on fire on purpose. I mean, it was just like the apocalypse,” he recalled. An entire litter had died from parvovirus, and another puppy was recently struck and killed by a train.
Tuccio said he repeatedly pressured Padilla’s office before city crews, police and Animal Services finally descended on the encampment. “They removed all the cats, and they removed multiple dogs,” he said. “One already got adopted by a staff member from Padilla’s office.”
But Tuccio also demanded accountability for the delayed response. “Padilla’s office took way too long, I think. They should have acted immediately,” he said. He was particularly incensed by an initial Animal Services visit where an officer left after the suspected breeder denied selling puppies and refused to have the dogs spayed or neutered. “That can’t be the extent of the interrogation. Like, or the investigation,” he said. “If I could go under a bridge and in five seconds find a puppy mill, then the police could too.”
Padilla acknowledged officials had long known about problems at the location. “This is not a location that we have not known about, but this is the beginning of us being more aggressive at asking the county to also do their part,” she said. She plans to introduce a motion requesting infrastructure improvements from the city’s Bureau of Engineering and Los Angeles County Department of Public Works to prevent the encampment from returning. “What we need is some real aggressive interjurisdictional hands, boots on the ground consistently, consistently, and consistently,” Padilla said.
The allegations of illegal animal sales persist despite existing Los Angeles restrictions on dog breeding and public animal sales, raising fresh questions about why those rules failed to prevent the operation.
Tuccio contends the problem extends citywide. “In every district there’s a problem, but council members try to keep it under the rug,” he said. He praised Councilwoman Traci Park for joining advocates on the Venice Boardwalk, where an attempted illegal puppy sale was exposed and a man was arrested on an outstanding warrant. Park subsequently introduced a motion seeking tougher restrictions on animal sales along Ocean Front Walk.
Now Tuccio is demanding similar urgency from every elected official. “The city has done such a tremendous job trying to sweep this under the rug,” he charged. “This is a wake-up call for every council member that we’re coming for all of you,” He added: “We’re not gonna stop. Every council member’s on notice.”