Month: August 2005

Who Sheltered Peter Daniel Young?

A number of media reports in July indicated that federal investigators believe animal rights activists in northern California helped Peter Daniel Young evade authorities during his seven years on the run.

Young was indicted in 1998 on charges stemming from several break-ins at fur farms. He disappeared and lived on the lam for 7 years before being arrested earlier this year.

According to the Associated Press, Young used another activist’s credit card and rented an apartment using a false name. The activist whose credit card Young was using also received mail at Young’s apartment according to the FBI.

In a search warrant application recently unsealed in the U.S. District Court of Northern California, FBI agent Scott Merriam wrote,

I have probable cause to believe that one or more individuals . . . have in some manner assisted Young in remaining concealed from arrest.

The search warrants also reveal Young’s motives in attempting to shoplift several CDs from a Starbucks which ultimately led to his arrest. Young ran an Internet-based mail-order business and apparently was selling his shop-lifted goods to help support himself.

Source:

Accused mink raider hid with friends in Santa Cruz, feds say. Todd Richmond, Associated Press, July 29, 2005.

Activists Target Red Lobster Over Canadian Seal Hunt

Animal rights activists upset over the return of seal hunting in Canada are targeting Red Lobster for protests.

Red Lobster’s crime is that it buys a lot of seafood from Canada, and the activists want Red Lobster to observe their boycott of Canadian seafood until that country agrees to stop the seal hunt.

A letter posted by Harpseals.Org volunteer Sue Hirsch to AR-NEWS in July read,

As you may know, HSUS had a protest at almost all the Red Lobster
restaurants across the US and Canada last month on June 25th, 2005.
This Saturday (and for every month now on) Harpseals.org along with
Seashepherd.org will be having the same kind of protests at as many Red
Lobsters as we can until the massacres stop.

Please go to www.harpseals.org <http://www.harpseals.org> for more
information and updates.

OUR GROUP WILL BE AT THE RED LOBSTER RESTAURANT OFF ROSE AVENUE IN
OXNARD AND WE NEED MORE VOLUNTEERS TO HELP US! WE JUST STAND WITH SIGNS
(NON-VIOLENT) FROM HSUS,etc., AND TELL PEOPLE (who want to listen) THAT
RED LOBSTER IS THE LARGEST PURCHASER OF CANADIAN SEAFOOD AND IF THEY
WOULD STOP PURCHASING THE SEAFOOD, WE COULD END THESE BARBARIC SLAUGHTERS).

Please come out to support us.

I haven’t eaten at Red Lobster in a long time, but the activist’s protest — not to mention Red Lobster’s Create Your Own Summer Seafood Feast special — might be just enough to send me there this weekend.

Source:

Canadian Baby Harp Seal Protest Oxnard July 30th, 2005. Sue Hirsch, Harpseals.Org.

Brave Activist Assaults Homeless Man

On July 8, a homeless man was assaulted by a female animal rights activist. The activist was not apprehended and police will not investigate further as the homeless man declined to press charges.

According to reports, the woman approach the man verbally abusing him because of the Covance advertisements. The unidentified woman then punched the man the face.

So why did an activist go out of her way to assault a homeless man? The man was trying to make a little money by selling UK magazine “The Big Issue in the North.” One of the advertisers in the magazine is animal testing firm Covance.

A spokesman for “The Big Issue” said his magazine had little choice but to stop taking ads from Covance,

We will not put the safety or our vendors at risk and feel we have no option other than to stop running the Covance adverts in the magazine. Picking on vulnerable people to get what you want is a despicable way to act. The Big Issue in the North works with people who are victimized. Our vendors are 13 times more likely to be attack in the street than any other member of the public. People should be supporting vendors and organizations like The Big Issue in the North to tackle inequalities and not reinforcing them.

Riiight. Apparently the magazine missed the noticed that homeless people are no better than mice or rats.

Covance apparently spent a rather small sum on ads in the magazine — just 2,500 pounds per year — and a spokesman lashed out at the sort of scum who would assault a homeless man,

It is a great shame that the Big Issue in the North, which does a great deal to help disadvantaged people to help themselves, has been forced into this position. They have done what they had to do because their vendors were vulnerable and their safety has to be the primary concern. Our anger is directed only towards those people who would attack a magazine vendor simply because the magazine doesn’t agree with their views.

The irony, of course, is that the advertisements were recruitment ads for clinical trials. So the activists want researchers to use people rather than animals for tests, but they’ll punch homeless people in the face when firms actually seek human volunteers for medical research.

Sources:

Big Issue pulls ad after vendor attack. Manchester Evening News, July 28, 2005.

Big Issue rejects adverts after vendor is attacked. Russell Jenkins, The Times, July 29, 2005.

Janice Angelillo Can’t Imagine Why Police Are Targeting Her

On July 21 at 4 a.m., animal rights activists Janice Angelillo and Nicholas Cooney were arrested outside a Hoffman-LaRoche facility in New Jersey. When she was arrested, police say the hands and clothing of both activists was stained with the same color spray paint has had been used in an earlier act of anti-Hoffman-LaRoche vandalism that morning.

Police subsequently deployed a 15-officer team to raid Angelillo’s residence. The officers removed a computer and other items from the residence.

In Angelillo’s world, however, she’s not under scrutiny because of the spray paint incident — just the latest in a long series of arrests for Angelillo — but rather she’s being persecuted for her beliefs. Angelillo told the Home News Tribune,

I feel like I’m being targeted for my political beliefs because I’m rather vocal and a public advocate for animal rights. It feels almost like harassment. I really don’t understand why they sent in a big SWAT team and raided my house all because I was brought up on misdemeanor charges. I think it was kind of outrageous.

Whereas prowling around Hoffman-LaRoche at 4 a.m. in the morning with the intent to commit acts of vandalism is simply a normal morning activity for Angelillo.

Angelillo and Cooney have been charged with giving fake identities to police, criminal mischief, criminal trespassing and conspiracy to commit criminal mischief. They will also be charged with criminal mischief for an act of vandalism that occurred in Long Beach, New Jersey, within 24 hours of the July 21st arrest.

The raid on Angelillo’s residence is clearly based on suspicions that Angelillo and/or Cooney have been involved with or have information about other animal rights related crimes committed in Pennsylvania, where Cooney lives.

Police also appear to be investigating whether Angelillo’s husband Ted Nebus might be involved in any acts of vandalism. A police spokesman told the Home News Tribune,

Our first encounter with him [Nebus] was when we executed a search warrant at the house (on Saturday). Prior to that, he’s not been a suspect, although he may become a suspect based on our examination of the evidence that we recovered from the house.

Source:

Animal activist questions count. Cheryl Sarfaty, Home News Tribune, July 28, 2005.

Activist on Need to Change Impressions, If Not Ideology

When the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus visited Orange County, California, in July the Los Angeles Times ran the typical back-and-forth story with competing quotes from circus employees and animal rights activists.

After quotes from animal rights activist Kristal Parks who told the Times that chaining elephants is “almost like putting a human being in a jail cell,” Orange County People for Animals activist Charlotte Gordon concedes to the Times that the animal rights movement might have an image problem,

[Gordon] . . . concedes the public hasn’t been won over. “We need to change [the impression] that we’re trying to take something away from them. That’s what people are thinking, that we’re trying to take away the fun. We’re just trying to take away the animals.”

In other words, people are absolutely correct in thinking that activists want to take away something important in their lives — namely, traditional interactions with animals.

Activists want to take away circuses with animals. They want to take away animal-based foods. They want to take away animal-based medical research. They want to take away aquariums and zoos and hunting, and many of them even want to take away domestic pets.

The problem for Gordon and her ilk is that people understand exactly what animal rights activists want to take away.

Source:

Ringmaster is needed to monitor this debate. Dana Parsons, Los Angeles Times, July 27, 2005.

The Protest That Launched A Thousand Lawsuits

Okay, maybe a thousand lawsuits is a bit of an exaggeration, but a Utah judge ordered Salt Lake County to pay animal rights protesters over a couple of demonstrations that the activists tried to hold at Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City in December 2004.

In both cases, police told the Utah Animal Rights Coalition activists that they did not have a legal right to hold their protests. Salt Lake County apparently had passed an ordinance requiring a 30-day notice to obtain a permit for a protest.

But the Associated Press reported in July that a judge has ruled that the county cannot apply that rule to small, impromptu protests like that organized by UARC.

Source:

Judge Orders SL County to Pay Animal Rights Protesters. KSL News, July 28, 2005.