Community Corner

Online Petition Calls for Closure of Monroe SPCA

Signatories are asking state animal control to revoke licenses for Fred Acker's shelter in Monroe.

A petition on Change.org is calling for state agencies to revoke the license and close the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Connecticut (SPCACT) in Monroe.

The shelter is run by Fred Acker, the embattled president of the SPCACT who was recently convicted on 15 counts of cruelty to animals and sentenced to 6 months suspended jail sentence and 2 years probation for his facility in Bethlehem.

Acker is also facing charges in Milford for allegedly holding unregistered adoption events and 17 counts of animal cruelty. Both cases are currently awaiting a plea.

In Monroe, Acker was arrested for breach of peace in 2005 in relation to a December 2004 incident at the SPCACT and pleaded ‘no contest’ to the charges. He received a 6 month suspended sentence.

(Acker filed a countersuit against two Monroe officers, alleging wrongful and malicious arrest.)

Referring to the charges in Milford and Bantam courts, Stratford resident Debra Murphy initiated the Change.org petition, which has received almost half of the 500 signatures it is seeking.

“This is a horrible breach of trust,” Murphy writes on the petition. “It is important that these animals have a voice and this individual needs to be held accountable and the abuse stopped.”

Murphy’s petition includes a letter to State Animal Control Supervisor Ray Connors requesting that his office “revoke any business licenses in [Acker’s] name and to remove any dogs, or cats in his possession or at the site in Monroe,” and further asks that he be punished “to the greatest extent of the law.”

Connors was not immediately available for comment. [Check back for updates.]

What do you think? Should the Monroe shelter be shut down or treated independently from the others?


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