The Rebel with a Cause

The “Underdawgz” program

Torres is all about the underdog. The pit bulls and their parolee handlers get a second chance. For some, it’s a last chance. In a city where nearly 70 percent of shelter dogs are pit bulls, lucky ones like Moose are rescued and retrained by Torres and appear in music videos with the likes of J-Lo. Zeus left the South L.A. shelter for the set of CSI: New York. In all, Torres has trained more than 300 pit bulls from every corner of the city.  And she couldn’t have done it without the parolees. Of the dozens of parolees who’ve come through Torres’ program in recent years, only a few have returned to prison.

Raised in Hollywood, the daughter of a film director whose claim to fame in Torres’ mind was selling seminude photos of Vanna White from one of his films to the National Enquirer, Torres fled yacht-club brunches and ended up on the gang-riddled streets of downtown. Two years later, holding her daughter in her arms, Torres saw her gang-member boyfriend killed on their front porch. She became a gang counselor until burning out and going back to her childhood passion of animal rescue. The union of her four-legged and two-legged pit bulls, as she puts it, was only natural.

Torres remembers the earliest days of her parolee program, when she noticed that A.J. in particular was taking too long to clean the kennels. When she asked if there was a problem, he answered, “Well, I have to play with them all. I’ve got to talk to them. I know what it feels like to be in a cell.” Today AJ is married to Tia. AJ is Aren Jackson who was recently facing his third strike for a bogus possession of stolen property charge. Previous strikes were for non- violent crimes back in the early 90’s. This is how the system works in California-it’s not about justice and it’s certainly not fair. Three strikes are currently implemented on the whim of District Attorneys, depending on the cases presented. It not administered with any congruity -The stories of people receiving LIFE in prison for stealing a piece of pizza are very true-horrifying as they may sound. “It costs the state of California approximately $50,000 a year to house a California inmate. But for $16,000 a year, I can pay him on a salary. I keep him out of prison. So hello California, I have saved you $44,000 per person. Can I have some of that money please?”