Thanks to everyone who helped make this a reality!
Here is the offical announcement: http://media.graytvinc.com/documents/Law+Director+Statement+-+Ajax.pdf
END OF UPDATE.
Short story about Officer Hickey and K9 Ajax below. But these are some resources to use to help show your support and to try and to prevent K9 Ajax from going to auction and keeping him where he belongs: with Officer Matt Hickey. Friends, you can still make a difference. We have 2 days until the city council meeting on Thursday night, February 11th. Here are some people to contact as well as the official Go Fund Me Page and Facebook Support Page. If you're on Twitter, we've been using the hashtags #StandWithHickey and #K9Ajax
Facebook page to support Officer Hickey and K9 Ajax
Email/Call (both) to make your voice heard:
Chief of Police Rodney Hupp,
RodneyHupp@
Law Director: Paul Bertram III
Paul G. Bertram, III 259 Butler Street Suite 200. Marietta, OH 45750 PHONE (740) 373-4171
FAX (740) 376-2013
Mayor Joe Matthews, Mayor740-373-1387
JoeMatthews@mariettaoh.net
COUNCIL
POSITION/NAME
E-MAIL ADDRESS
PHONE NUMBER
President of Council
Josh Schlicher JoshSchlicher@mariettaoh.net 740-350-1337
1st Ward
Roger Kalter RogerKalter@mariettaoh.net 740-373-1784
2nd Ward
Mike McCauley MikeMcCauley@mariettaoh.net 740-374-5155
3rd Ward
Steve Thomas SteveThomas@mariettaoh.net 740-516-4153
4th Ward
Tom Vukovic TomVukovic@mariettaoh.net 740-373-2047
At Large
Cindy Oxender CindyOxender@mariettaoh.net 740-373-7323
Kathy Downer KathyDowner@mariettaoh.net 740-373-7422
At Large
Sarah Snow SarahSnow@mariettaoh.net 740-373-1387
Nancy Johnson NancyJohnson@mariettaoh.net 740-374-5501
The Quick Facts:
Officer Matt Hickey was a K9 handler with Marietta Ohio police department. He retired after 30 years because of slow to heal injuries. He stopped working in the summer of 2015 and his K9 partner Ajax has not worked since then either.
Hickey retired in January of 2016 after the police chief Rodney Hupp assured Hickey he could keep K9 Ajax if he paid for him - but if he did not pay for K9 Ajax - Hupp would send another officer to confiscate the dog.
Hickey arrived with the money and Chief Hupp changed his mind and said K9 Ajax now cost more, saying it was against the law to allow Officer Hickey to keep his dog, however, the Chief told Hickey he could keep his dog if Hickey still kept working for free as a volunteer (auxiliary).
I wrote a detailed story on it here: Officer Matt Hickey Speaks Out
Even with incredible pressure from animal lovers, police, police supporters, and good hearted people everywhere - the "leadership" of Marietta Ohio is still refusing to allow K9 Ajax to remain with Hickey and still plans on announcing the auction date for 'sealed' bids on Thursday night. The Mayor and the Chief are furious that the public is putting pressure on them - yet still refuse to do what is right and logical.
The story hit the media and there was a tremendous response but then the leadership of Marietta told the media the situation was resolved when it wasn't - so the story lost it's traction. And now on facebook the FALSE story that Officer Hickey accepted the offer to work for free is "trending" (which leads me to wonder if there is a way to pay to have stories "trend" at the top on Facebook the way you can pay Twitter to publicize a story).
Please help - you can make a difference (or at the very least say you tried!)!
