The Man Who Purred

By J. T. Tavares

There are approximately 100 million cats and 83 million dogs in the United States. Politicians rarely talk about them or pass laws to protect them, there are few articles in newspapers about the need for more funding to help them, and little is said of the estimated four million that are euthanized each year — 112 million over the last 28 years. But there were 1,352 cats that weren't euthanized during that time period because of a man near New Orleans who refused to kill them.
And it was this one man, some of the 1,352 cats and kittens he saved and the tens of thousands who spoke up on behalf of them, that were about to change everything.
As Henry was taken to the deputy's cruiser on the day of his arrest, walking over the wet brown and black marsh soil that caked to a man's shoes like a Louisiana gumbo sticks to one's ribs, he told young Orleans Parish Gazette reporter Jessica Rank why he had refused to kill those cats, and his words would become an anthem for the thousands who would roar on his behalf.
"Are you guilty, Mr. Louviere?"
"No," said Henry.
"But they say you didn't do your job and euthanize those cats. Why not?" Rank followed up.
"Because they didn't do anything. They weren't sick or dying. The cats simply were, like all of us, just trying to live their lives. I saved the 1,352," said Henry.
The 248-word, 5-inch article written by Rank and buried on page 18 of this low-circulation weekly newspaper would not have meant a thing had it not been for a little known no-kill cat shelter owner passing through Orleans Parish and stopping for a cup of coffee at a rundown convenience store after a long drive with another volunteer to rescue three cats.
Exiting the store with two 24-ounce coffees, Sheila Mercier went to the passenger side and handed her friend Lila Washington one of the cups.
Circling back around the front of her 1998 Ford Taurus station wagon, Sheila noticed a newspaper rack on the sidewalk, "Orleans Parish Gazette – Local News every week since 1954."
The former newspaper copy editor picked up the free copy and got in her car, stuffing the 36-page tabloid in the sun visor above her head.
It was after midnight when Sheila read the article headlined, "Worker arrested at parish's animal shelter."
She knew she must act to save this man who risked everything to save 1,352 cats.
Her friend, Lisa Adler, was not from the South but from a different South, the South Shore of Boston, Massachusetts, with its stately mansions and 8,000-square-foot vacation homes.
Together they would send a well-written plea spoken from their hearts and not from the carefully calculated and manipulative language of a sophisticated appeal letter from some corporate charity conglomerate — and that would make all the difference.
They would come from all of Louisiana and then from as far as Maine and Montana. They would come to a field across from the Orleans Parish Animal Control Shelter, but that would be just the beginning of the fight for Henry and the four million cats and dogs euthanized each year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483553078

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Twenty-Five

Preface

There are approximately 100 million cats and 83 million dogs in the United States. Politicians rarely talk about them or pass laws to protect them, there are few articles in newspapers about the need for more funding to help them, and little is said of the estimated four million that are euthanized each year — 112 million over the last 28 years. But there were 1,352 cats that weren’t euthanized during that time period because of a man who refused to kill them.

And it was this one man, some of the 1,352 cats and kittens he saved and the tens of thousands who spoke up on behalf of them, that were about to change everything.

Chapter One

The four dozen or so kittens began yowling, howling and wailing as soon as they heard the creak of the large steel door and caught sight of Henry Louviere’s brown work boots. The door separated these under-3-month-old cats from the rest of the more than 200 cats occupying the 1960s windowless concrete block feline building of the Orleans Parish Animal Control Shelter complex located in a wooded area north of New Orleans.

Now, boys and girls, calm down, just a quick look to see how ya’ll are, said Henry as he walked the floor, past cages made of chain-link fencing, with only small rug remnants covering the damp cement floors of the cages that held four or more kittens in each.

For 28 years Henry had made this walk.

Feeding, checking on the health and well-being of his cats, and being, most often, the only human contact the animals had. There were the lucky few, occasionally taken to the adoption room, that had a chance at having a permanent home.

The sun shining through two large windows of the carpeted adoption room had three brown couches, tan feather-filled pillows and an excess of brightly colored mice dangling from strings on wooden dowels.

There were also ping pong balls and plastic lattice balls with bells in them.

On one side of the room was a red, white and green 4-foot circular tunnel made of material that made a crinkling sound as the cats wound their way through. A 6-foot high cat tower with nine perches on which the cats could view the world around them sat in one corner.

A virtual paradise for these cats used to the barren and colorless confines of the concrete block building that was their shelter home.

Unfortunately for the cats detained at the shelter, the people looking to adopt numbered fewer than 30 a week, and most of those were looking for dogs.

Henry had started working at the center when he was 27-years-old.

His love for animals had triggered his decision to transfer from the parish’s public works department where he had been trying to work his way from the back of a garbage truck to a driver’s seat.

Today, Henry was concerned with a kitten he had named Dumpster Diver.

The kitten had been stuck in a dumpster that it had either fallen into while looking for food, or been thrown into. Someone had called the police and an officer had pulled the kitten out and brought him to the shelter.

Henry had the facility’s veterinarian look at the kitten soon after he arrived. Diver was being given regular shots for an ear infection that just didn’t want to heal.

Henry opened the cage slowly, where this 2-pound black and white tabby male lay. Diver lifted his head as Henry’s hand slowly moved forward and underneath him, lifting the 8-week-old kitten from the lavish white cotton comforter he had bought on the night of the cat’s arrival.

The $39.95 cost came from Henry’s own pocket, as this parish shelter certainly would not use any of its budget for a luxury such as that for a kitten that would in the end — most likely — have to be euthanized.

This was also Henry’s job, to put down these cats — which averaged about three a week lately — in order to keep the shelter’s population in line with the parish’s population-control specifications.

The first year Henry worked at the shelter was in 1986.

Then, under the training of Mike Church, he witnessed and assisted in the euthanizing of 42 cats.

Henry vowed that if he ever took over, he would not allow a single cat to be put to death under his watch.

And that is why, on the damp and foggy morning of March 8, 2014, at 8 a.m., Henry Louviere was led — in handcuffs — from the Orleans Parish Animal Control Shelter by two Orleans Parish Sheriff deputies.

The local district attorney who would be running for reelection later that year had notified the New Orleans Tribune newspaper, hoping for coverage of the bust of Henry Louviere.

Dave Winston, the newspaper’s editor responsible for parish courts and cops coverage, had neither a reporter to spare nor the interest in covering the arrest of some low-level parish employee. Instead Winston called his long-time friend Sharon Sanchez, editor of the Orleans Parish Gazette, a weekly newspaper that covered north Orleans Parish, to tip her off to the arrest.

As for Henry, it seems he had kept his word to himself and to the 1,352 perfectly healthy cats and kittens that the parish had ordered to be killed in the 27 years since he ran the facility — he had not killed a single one.

Henry had turned on the anesthetic gas isoflurane, which induces unconsciousness in a cat, allowed it to fill the airtight chamber at the facility, and then turned on the line that filled the chamber with the carbon dioxide that would kill the animal.

Henry had done this 1,352 times, except each time he had — according to the indictment against him — failed to put the cat or kitten in the chamber.

But Henry’s accusers didn’t accuse him of saving the lives of cats and kittens. No, they said what Henry did was falsify records, used parish materials and supplies in a fraudulent manner and violated other state laws and parish ordinances.

In all, if convicted, Henry could spend eight years in prison.

Jessica Rank, a recent graduate of Orleans Parish Community College, had been hired by the Gazette newspaper in November, and was proving herself to be a good reporter and writer. She covered Henry’s arrest.

The 5-foot 6-inch Rank, wearing a red windbreaker and University of Wisconsin Badgers baseball cap, waited outside the chain-link fence of the main entrance of the facility.

A gate opened to her left and Henry Louviere began the walk down to the deputy’s cruiser, walking over the wet brown and black marsh soil that caked to a man’s shoes like a Louisiana gumbo sticks to your ribs.

Rank got lucky that day. She knew one of the deputies arresting the man, and he stopped Henry so she could ask a couple of questions.

Are you guilty, Mr. Louviere? she asked.

No, said Henry.

But they say you didn’t do your job and euthanize those cats. Why not? Rank followed up.

Because they didn’t do anything. They weren’t sick or dying. The cats simply were, like all of us, just trying to live their lives. I saved the 1,352, said Henry.

Rank and the deputies stood in silence, until Henry finally said, Can we go now?

The deputies placed Henry in the back of their cruiser, and drove off.

When Rank returned to the office, she thought she had a great story. Her editor said it was no big deal, write 200-250 words and she’d find a place for it inside by the crime report.

Rank, new and needing this job, didn’t argue. She sat down, opened her MacBook Pro laptop and gave her editor 248 words. The last 43 of those words were, Mr. Louviere maintains he is innocent, telling the Gazette he refused to kill the animals ‘because they didn’t do anything. They weren’t sick or dying. The cats simply were, like all of us, just trying to live their lives. I saved the 1,352.’

That could have been the end of the story of Henry Louviere and his 1,352 cats, if it hadn’t been for Sheila Mercier of the Mercier Cat Sanctuary in Tangipahoa Parish just north of Orleans Parish.

About a week after Louviere’s arrest, Mercier and her friend of 22 years, shelter volunteer, Lila Washington, were down in Orleans Parish picking up three cats from a woman, pets of her mother who had died.

Not wanting to see her mother’s cats euthanized and being unable to keep them in her small downtown New Orleans apartment that didn’t allow pets, the woman had called more than a dozen shelters before finding Sheila.

Upon hearing the woman’s predicament, Sheila had agreed to pick up the cats and bring them to her shelter, guaranteeing the woman her mother’s cats would live out their lives there or be found a good and permanent home.

With the two white shorthairs, Bubbles and Tulip, in one large cage and black and white tabby Fredrick in another, the woman headed back to Independence, Louisiana, and Mercier’s shelter with their three, soon-to-be new residents.

It’s a long ride, Sheila told Lila. I’m going to stop at this gas station for a coffee. Would you like one?

Lila nodded yes.

Sheila’s love of coffee and her desire for a cup was about to change the life and predicament of Henry Louviere, who was sitting in a jail cell at the Orleans Parish Jail some 65 miles away, forgotten more than 10 days after his arrest.

Exiting the store with two 24-ounce coffees, Sheila went to the passenger side and handed Lila the one with two creams and four sugars.

Circling back around the front of her 1998 Ford Taurus station wagon, Sheila noticed a newspaper rack on the sidewalk that had a white sign with red lettering, Orleans Parish Gazette – Local News every week since 1954.

The former newspaper copy editor picked up the free copy and got in her car, stuffing the 36-page tabloid in the sun visor above her head.

Two very tired women carried Bubbles, Tulip and Fredrick into their new home — the Mercier Cat Sanctuary —at about 10:30 p.m.

It had been a long day for Sheila and Lila, but both women quietly knew their mission that day had been giving the gift of life to cats whose deceased owner would be happy that her three beautiful companions were safe.

Sheila then drove Lila the three blocks to her home and returned to the shelter and her home exhausted, yet wide awake.

Grabbing the newspaper from the sun visor, Sheila tromped the 25 feet from her truck to the back door that led into the kitchen of her 1954 Creole-style home. She unlocked the solid wood door, having to lift it up by the doorknob and give it a shove with her shoulder to get it to open. Sheila knew the house well as she had grown up in it, inheriting it when her widowed mother died in 2002.

Throwing down a knapsack into a corner, she headed for one of the tubular steel kitchen table chairs, collapsing onto its red vinyl seat.

Sleep wasn’t going to come easily, thought Sheila, as wound up as she was on coffee and the adrenaline she’d generated from the long drive home.

Noticing coffee still in the pot she had made this morning, she poured one-third of a cup of the black stimulant into a mug that boldly stated in solid black lettering, Cats Rule.

She placed the cup into a microwave on the counter. Sheila fidgeted to press the necessary buttons in the correct order that would heat the liquid for 2 minutes.

Reaching into a cabinet above the refrigerator, she pulled down a bottle of Canadian whiskey, unscrewed the cap and waited impatiently the 1 minute and 33 seconds for her coffee to heat.

Pulling it from the microwave, she filled the other two-thirds of the cup with whiskey and fell back onto the straight-backed kitchen chair.

The first sip of the whiskey-flavored hot coffee soothed her sore muscles and eased the nerves of her wired mind.

She knew that a cup — well, maybe two — would help her sleep, but still allow her to rise at 4:30 a.m. to begin the process of feeding the 120 cats and kittens that would be anxiously awaiting her in the 2,300-square-foot shelter behind her modest home.

As she sipped her soothing nightcap, Sheila reached for the Orleans Parish Gazette she had thrown onto the laminated kitchen table that her parents had purchased in 1962.

She smiled as she gazed at the front page of this small weekly newspaper and its lead story — the announcement of one Betrand Robicheaux’s retirement from the Thomas Jefferson Middle School where he had served as principal for the last 32 years.

Robicheaux had worked for the Orleans School District for 42 years and now according to the story planned to do some fishing and spend time with his wife and their grandchildren.

No doubt leading to the tedious boredom that would soon set in weeks or months after this man who had always had a purpose his entire life realized he now had none, Sheila thought.

Reading about the new rules for lawn watering announced by a local municipality and the $387 the Ladies Auxiliary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars had raised at a Saturday baked-goods sale in the parking lot of the Lee Avenue Winn Dixie and in combination with the effects of her coffee-flavored whiskey, Sheila began to relax and realize sleep would soon come.

She decided to pour herself another half cup of whiskey while continuing to read more of this quaint newspaper, hoping to ensure that the sleep she now longed for would indeed come soon.

Turning to page 18, Sheila noticed a story at the bottom right-hand corner headlined, Worker arrested at parish’s animal shelter.

The 5-inch long article written by Jessica Rank gave the details of Henry’s arrest, what he was accused of doing and the quote from him that, although unknown to Sheila that night was — because of the action she would take — about to become a battle cry.

Intrigued by the compelling story of Louviere, but unable to keep her eyes open, Sheila tossed the paper onto the table and headed for her bedroom. She managed only to get her boots off, collapsing onto the large bed, avoiding hitting her head on the brass headboard, and falling asleep in minutes.

Sheila went about her routine the next morning, feeding cats and kittens, checking the quarantined cats who were recovering from injury or illness and greeting her dedicated team of volunteers, some of whom arrived as early as 5 a.m. to help with the many morning tasks.

As afternoon approached, Sheila began to think of the story of Henry Louviere and decided to show the article to a friend.

Lisa Adler was not a Louisiana native.

Lisa, however, was from a different South, the South Shore of Boston, Massachusetts, with its stately mansions and 8,000-square-foot vacation homes.

Graduating from Boston College with a degree in economics, Lisa had avoided the temptations of Wall Street, opting instead for a small, windowless office and a Steelcase desk at Illinois Local 1 of the Service Employees International Union on Wacker Drive in Chicago.

That was some 36 years ago.

Adler had finished her career in New Orleans at a think tank assisting law firms and groups representing workers, small businesses and environmental organizations in their fights against the injustices of the massive oil industry in Louisiana.

She had fallen in love with New Orleans since her arrival and, upon retiring in 2012, she decided to stay.

Retirement gave her an opportunity to use her lifelong skills in organizing, fighting bureaucracy and swaying public opinion to volunteer for nonprofits that were meeting resistance in their efforts to help others.

That’s how the two women had met, when Sheila had asked Lisa to help the shelter fight the local zoning board that was dragging its feet and refusing the shelter’s request to add an additional out building.

After a phone call, Lisa and Sheila agreed to meet for lunch the next day, Sunday.

The two met at the Workingman’s Bar and Grill, a small outdoor lunch shack popular with the blue-collar workers from a nearby industrial park.

It had been several months since the pair had seen each other, keeping in touch during that time by email and the occasional phone call.

The friends hugged by the front door and made their way over to one of the two dozen picnic tables on the concrete patio, most empty on this early Sunday afternoon.

It’s so nice to see you, Lisa.

Yes, it’s been a while, responded Lisa.

Two cheeseburgers, a large order of fries and two Diet Cokes arrived at the table as the pair talked about what they had been doing, how the holidays had been hectic and how they were treating life and how it had been treating them back.

God, I forgot how good these burgers are, said Lisa.

Lisa, whose curiosity never ceased, finally asked Sheila about the story she had read about this guy named Henry Louviere.

Sheila reached into her knapsack and pulled out a large manila envelope.

Fumbling through it, she pulled out the tear sheet from the Orleans Parish Gazette.

Read this, she said, handing her friend the article.

Minutes later Lisa looked up and expressed her shock, not at the fact the parish took action against Louviere, but that they were going to press charges and not just fire him.

No, Lisa, it’s not just that, I think this is an opportunity to use Louviere as the vehicle for what I’ve talked to you about in the past, a federal pets’ rights act that covers all the issues many of us have fought for years to achieve.

What are you talking about, Sheila? How can the arrest of this guy for not euthanizing cats be used to create a movement for a broader agenda? I think you’re reaching here, I’m afraid to say.

Not if it’s done right.

First we need to create sympathy for this guy and make a hero out of him for saving the 1,352 cats. And it needs to be an emotional demonstration. The kind of action to highlight the story that will bring Jennifer Dowling at CNN to tears and have MSNBC doing live remotes to support the protesters, Sheila said, laughing at the prospect of CNN or MSNBC ever caring about such a minor story.

Sheila, ‘protest’? Just what did you have in mind here?

OK, so maybe it won’t be more than a local protest, with a hundred or so people, but it might be something bigger. I have to try.

Sheila talked excitedly for more than an hour, pulling out an 8-inch thick file folder with printouts, samples for flyers, protest signs, T-shirts, legal pads filled with possible press releases, letters to political leaders and a flash drive containing the names and email addresses of hundreds of animal rights activists in Louisiana.

When finally exhausted and believing she had convinced her friend of the need to take action, an emotionally drained Sheila asked, Will it work, Lisa?

You know, it just might.

The women agreed that they needed to start immediately, and Lisa agreed to Sheila’s invitation to spend the evening so they could work out the details of their plan.

Lisa lay asleep on a couch in a bedroom that had been converted to an office at Sheila’s home. It was 2 a.m. Monday morning when the determined shelter owner and cat lover hit send on an email message to 3,497 animal activists, cat and dog lovers, contributors to animal causes in all 64 parishes in Louisiana and to national leaders for groups concerned with animal welfare.

"Dear animal lovers,

On March 8, 2014, a tragedy occurred that we believe you’ll agree requires an immediate and strong response from animal rights activists, pet owners and all animal lovers.

Henry Louviere, the manager of the feline section of the Orleans Parish Animal Control Shelter, was arrested …."