A Message to Our Community

Dear WesternU Community,

As many of you know by now, members of our University family were injured in an alarming assault at the Spay & Neuter Clinic located in the North Valley Animal Shelter in East Los Angeles on September 4th. The Spay & Neuter Clinic is a City-owned facility where our College of Veterinary Medicine’s faculty and supervised DVM students provide low-cost animal care services to the public.

While this remains an active law enforcement investigation, we can confirm that the individual involved in this attack was not affiliated with the University or the Clinic. The Mayor’s Office has shared that law enforcement has taken a suspect into custody.

Several employees were injured, and other members of the Clinic staff were deeply shaken by the incident. We also want to make clear that the suspect’s dog remained with our veterinary team throughout the ordeal, and no animals were harmed or left without appropriate care. That is due to the extraordinary efforts of our veterinary faculty, Clinic staff, and DVM students, who continued caring for the animals under extremely difficult circumstances. We will share additional information as facts are confirmed and as it becomes appropriate to do so.

I want to thank the colleagues at North Central who acted quickly and stayed with each other in a frightening moment, the medical personnel who cared for the injured, and the law enforcement officers who responded. I am grateful, too, for the many of you who have already reached out to check on friends and teammates. That instinct, to turn toward one another, is the truest thing about this University, and exemplifies its ethos.

Our thoughts are with our injured colleagues and their families as they recover.  We are currently carefully and thoroughly reviewing the incident that occurred at the North Central Spay & Neuter Clinic to determine appropriate next steps. In closing, we wish to provide a few recommendations for our campus community:

• Confidential Counseling: Claremont Counseling & Support Center (CCSC) has partnered with WesternU to provide responsive, compassionate, and clinically excellent urgent and emergent mental health services and support for faculty and staff impacted by this event. CCSC’s clinicians will provide up to six (6) short-term therapy sessions per person, virtually,  on campus, or at its Claremont office. CCSC’s clinicians are experienced in higher-education settings, crisis response, and short-term evidence-based interventions, and look forward to supporting WesternU’s ongoing wellness initiatives. Kari Halko-Weekes, Ph.D., will be reaching out to each of the affected employees directly.
• Additional Resources: Confidential counseling is also available around the clock to faculty and staff through Optum at 800-234-5465, and to students through our student assistance and counseling services. You are also welcome to contact the Office of the President, and we will help connect you with support. Reaching out is not weakness; in a moment like this, it is good judgment.
• Protect the privacy of those involved: Please avoid speculating about what occurred or sharing unverified details, and please continue to follow official University safety notifications. Media inquiries should be directed to Dr. Jill Ferreira in the Office of the President.
• Safety Reports: WesternU recognizes that safety is a shared responsibility that we all work together to achieve. Community members are reminded to remain aware of their surroundings, avoid confronting suspicious individuals, and ensure doors are fully secured when entering or leaving campus facilities. Anyone who observes suspicious activity should immediately contact Campus Security at 909-706-3000 or submit a report through SafeZone | Campus Security. If you haven’t downloaded the SafeZone app, please do so as it will provide security resources in the event of an emergency or incident.

We are a University grounded in an ethos of humanism and dedicated to healing people, animals, and communities. That work does not stop because something painful has happened to us. However, at times like this, it also means turning that same care inward, toward our own. Please keep our injured colleagues and the entire North Central team in your thoughts.

With care and gratitude,
Robin Farias-Eisner, MD, PhD, MBA
President
Western University of Health Sciences