From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2004:

PROSECUTING ANIMAL CRUELTY & ILLEGAL ANIMAL FIGHTING
AIM Reality Training video
featuring Captain Ken "Beau" Beauregard & Dena Mangiamele, DVM.
(POB 26593, Los Angeles, CA 90026; 213-413-6428; help@realitytraining.com   www.realitytraining.com 2004.
Two hours. Available on DVD disk or in VHS format. Free to law enforcement agencies and bona fide humane organizations.

Sporting Dog Journal, supported by paid subscriptions and kennel advertising, "has about 6,000 subscribers nationwide," wrote Oliver Mackson of the Middletown Times Herald-Record.
Said prosecutor David Hoovier, "To the dogfighting world, this is like taking down Al Capone."
Animal fighting, stereotypically associated with backwoods rednecks, migrant workers, and inner city youths, has re-emerged after almost a century of successful repression as a major branch of organized crime. Police, animal control officers, and humane investigators need all the help they can get to bring it to heel.
In early 2003 the law enforcement training film production company In The Line of Duty released a 35-minute video called Animal Abuse: Why Cops Can & Need To Stop It, priced at $95 per copy. Animal Issues Movement founder Phyllis Daugherty, of Los Angeles, appreciated that it was a well-meaning attempt to fill a gap in police officer training, and obtained a grant to distribute free copies to law enforcement agencies.
Daughterty bought and distributed 150 copies before deciding she could and should do better.
Daugherty, a 20-year veteran of animal advocacy, in 1989 produced an influential training video featuring Marvin Mackie, DVM, teaching early-age dog and cat sterilization surgery, and in 2001 produced a video documentary on overcrowding in animal shelters entitled Standing Room Only.
Having an idea what was really needed, but only the remainder of her grant to work with, Daugherty simply set up a video camera on a table and invited two friends over to practice show-and-tell.
One participant was Captain Ken "Beau" Beauregard, a former police officer who retired due to medical disability and went on to do investigative work for the San Diego County Public Defender's Office and the San Diego Humane Society. In recent years he has primarily taught law enforcement technique.
The other participant was Dena Mangiamele, DVM, who was formerly animal control director for San Diego County, and before that was chief veterinarian for the Los Angeles Department of Animal Regulation. Also trained as a law enforcement officer, Mangiamele may have the most praised television presence of any veterinarian since "James Herriot," a fictional character created in autobiographical novels by British veterinarian james Alfred Wright and played by professional actor Christopher Timothy.
Beauregard is particularly distinguished for his work on cockfighting cases, and has also developed expertise on dogfighting and animal hoarding. Mangiamele has more experience with dogfighting, and testified as an expert witness for the Fricchione prosecution, but also is familiar with animal hoarding and has handled cockfighting cases.
Daugherty started the camera and the conversation, she told ANIMAL PEOPLE, then stepped aside as Beauregard and Mangiamele "discussed what actually happens when you arrive at the scene of a dogfight or cockfight: how to protect the officers, detain the suspects, safeguard spectators (including children), identify, gather and preserve evidence, identify the animals for care, and photograph and videotape wounds for future reference--all the details of how to prepare for court and handle the animals, done in a brain-storming atmosphere," with some use of props and illustrative material from past cases.
"We bought a second-hand Mac, and some editing programs, and cut down seven hours of rambling discussion," Daughtery continued. "It's not going to win an Academy Award, but I think most law enforcement officers will find it helpful, and all the material is free. We are going to continue interactive training online with anyone who wants to log on. AIM is doing this with <www.Pet-Abuse.com>, so their data bank will also be available--again, at no charge to the officers.

Cruelty case data

Alison Gianotto, founder of <www.Pet-Abuse.com>, makes a cameo appearance to conclude Prosecuting Animal Cruelty & Illegal Animal Fighting. She describes her project as "the only international searchable online database of convicted animal abusers with information provided by law-enforcement, animal control/humane organizations and prosecutors around the world."
ANIMAL PEOPLE and the Animal Legal Defense Fund had the same idea more than 10 years before Gianotto started, beginning with a joint study of cruelty case sentencing patterns and working in a pre-World Wide Web data compilation format oriented toward fax-on-request useage.
After the first abstract of findings appeared in 1992, the ALDF and ANIMAL PEOPLE projects took different paths.
The ALDF side of it grew into an online data base of noteworthy animal-related court cases.
The ANIMAL PEOPLE side expanded into paper files on thousands of cases, often used in statistical reviews to topics of interest, but the files have never been converted into an online searchable data base despite our long-held ambition of doing so. Our files on approximately 1,000 animal hoarding cases were almost ready for web formatting on October 20, 1998, when an ill-timed lightning flash that hit a wire during a backup operation destroyed our newsroom computer and our external hard drive, and severely damaged our laptop as well. Only the abstract of the first 688 cases could be recovered. The mission is now Gianotto's, may her luck be better and her project more enduring.
As to Academy Awards, there is none for law enforcement training videos, but Prosecuting Animal Cruelty & Illegal Animal Fighting will help even seasoned veterans of humane investigation.
Daugherty deserves an award not only for the quality of the information shared, but also for observing on camera that, "The fact that an abusive behavior has persisted for several generations within the same family does not make it a part of their 'culture.'"
Prosecutors, healers, and law enforcement are mostly now agreed on that point as regards child abuse and spousal abuse, despite some continuing confusion involving ethnic customs. It is time to extend that recognition to animal abuse, which precedes other forms of family violence, as Beauregard points out, in approximately 70% of all documented cases.