INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Two Indianapolis Animal Care Services workers were fired July 31 for searching potential pet adopters on Indiana’s online public court platform, MyCase, for previous animal cruelty charges.

MyCase’s name-searching system allows public access to information on civil and criminal cases in the state, along with corresponding lawsuits, orders, and court proceedings.

Kylee Fox, 21, was hired as an adoption counselor in May at the city government-operated animal shelter. According to Fox, when she first arrived, the standard policy encouraged counselors to check potential adopters on MyCase before releasing an animal into the adopter’s care.

They were specifically tasked with searching the adopter’s name for any domestic battery, neglect of a dependent, sexual violence, or murder convictions up to three years prior to the desired adoption date.

In addition to checking MyCase, they were to check the internal Animal Care Services system, called Chameleon, for any red flags. MyCase’s searching abilities cover all cases in all counties of Indiana, while Chameleon only covers names in Marion County.

That policy was first instated in 2022, after the gruesome hanging and stabbing death of a dog that had been adopted from Animal Care Services to an owner with a violent criminal history.

The rule was changed about two weeks into Fox’s tenure at Animal Care Services.

“Within the first week or two of me being there, they took away the MyCase policy,” Fox said. “They argued that going to any home, no matter who it’s with, where it is, what not, is better than being in the shelter.”

Fox said the policy change was never communicated to her directly, nor was the change written down on paper. She was notified of the change by one of her colleagues.

While Fox did not agree with the change, she chose to follow the rule for quite some time and did not search potential adopters on MyCase for quite some time.

That changed when Fox learned a dog, named Champagne, was adopted out to a couple with five animal cruelty or abandonment violations on MyCase. The dogs had also been previously adopted by the same couple and later confiscated before the two came back in to Animal Care Services to re-adopt them.

“That is what kind of sparked the fire in me to keep checking MyCase, because this animal went home with somebody who has a history of abusing animals, neglecting animals,” Fox said. “They were literally confiscated from them.”

Over the course of a few months, Kylee looked into a couple of other potential adopters on MyCase. Over that time, she denied four adoptions, two of which were due to having found recent the potential adopter had recent MyCase animal abuse charges.

On July 31, Fox said she was wrapping up an adoption at her desk when her boss called her into her office.

She sat down and was handed a letter saying her employment was being terminated.

The letter included a brief explanation. “You have continued to search MyCase for background information although you have been specifically told not to do so,” it said.

Fox pressed her boss for more clarification.

“She just said, ‘you continued to check MyCase, you continued to check MyCase’ every time I would ask her to elaborate,” Fox said. “That is very much what the termination is based around. I asked her for a copy of my paper and she had the guy from HR follow me out.”

Moments after Fox was escorted out of the building, her coworker, adoption counselor Makenna Chiddister says she was called into that same office and handed a similar sheet of paper.

The paper said she was being fired for checking MyCase.

“I asked her what she has to back that up, because I 100% support what Kylee did, I think MyCase should be a thing there, but I myself didn’t physically check it,” Chiddister said. “She said statements had been made to her. I said, ‘ok, well what were these statements?’ She would not elaborate.”

Chiddister chose not to sign the letter, as she felt it would be seen as her admitting to having used MyCase to search certain names.

Both Fox and Chiddister said they enjoyed their work and would love to work again at IACS, but that they would like to see the MyCase policy reinstated.

Statement

“The Department of Business and Neighborhood Services, which oversees Animal Care Services (ACS), will not speak on matters pertaining to specific personnel. It is forever ACS’ mission to advocate for the health, safety, and welfare of animals. This year, ACS partnered with Best Friends Animal Society, a national nonprofit organization that provides adoption, spay/neuter, and educational programming. The partnership gives Best Friends the opportunity to review and provide recommendations to the shelter’s medical, kennel, enforcement, and adoption teams. One of Best Friends’ recommendations for due diligence within the adoption process was to focus on the shelter’s existing system, Chameleon, which pulls information related to animal welfare cases. This includes animal abuse and animal cruelty cases. Checking MyCase was discouraged, as its use was problematic and could lead to biased, inequitable vetting of potential adoptees. The ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) says in its Position Statement on Responsibilities of Animal Shelters that shelters should retain broad discretion in adoption and placement decisions. The ASPCA adds that shelters should scrutinize even ‘facially neutral policies and practices’ to ensure prejudicial considerations are not affecting adoption decisions. They encourage the ‘open adoption’ approach, which ACS uses. The open adoption approach matches adopters and pets through conversation, compassion, and honesty. It is ACS’ goal to find loving homes for all the animals that come to the shelter, and we would never knowingly place an animal in a potentially dangerous situation. So far in 2024, we have had 1,353 adoptions, diverted more than 600 animals through our Indy CARES program, and transferred 1,031 to rescue partners. These collective efforts and more have the shelter currently at an 84.5% live release rate.”

Indianapolis Animal Care Services