pamnock wrote:
Here's another article on the same topic . . .
I think it'sthe same article, just easier to read.I alsothink that nowit's on Yahoo, we can post ithere.
Trial set to start for PETA workers caught euthanizing, dumping cats and dogs
By Harriet Ryan, Court TV Mon Jan 22, 1:29 PM ET
NEW YORK
]Court TV[/color]) -
The dog carcasses always appeared late on Wednesday nights, wrapped inblack trash bags and stuffed in the Dumpster behind the Piggly Wigglysupermarket.
Over a period of three weeks in the summer of 2005, police officers inthe small town of Ahoskie, N.C., pulled the bodies of 80 animals fromthe trash bin. Some were puppies, some were full-grown. Most were mutts.
On the fourth week, officers set up a stakeout, and when a white van pulled up to the dumpster, they pounced.
If the van's cargo 10 dead dogs and three dead cats in black bags was to be expected, its occupants were not. The driver and thepassenger were employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals(PETA) and the vehicle was registered to the organization.
The workers, Adria Hinkle, 28, and Andrew Cook, 25, were arrested andlater indicted on 24 felony charges, including 21 counts of animalcruelty, for injecting lethal doses of an anesthetic into strays theyhad just collected from county shelters and a veterinarian's office.
For PETA, the largest animal rights organization in the world, it was apublic relations nightmare. The group, whose many celebrity supportersinclude Pamela Anderson and Alec Baldwin, made its name by obtainingand publicizing disturbing images of torturous lab experiments,blood-soaked fur farms and shocking abuse of circus animals.
Now it was confronted with photos of a graphic scene of its ownemployees' making: a lifeless cream-colored puppy being lifted out offa pile of trash. A dead Dalmatian sprawled on its back. A jet-black catand her two kittens cinched in a trash bag.
"It's hideous," the president of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, acknowledged twodays after the arrests. "I think this is so shocking it's bound to hurtour work. "
Despite this assessment, Newkirk and PETA stood by Hinkle and Cook inthe coming months, consistently advocating for their innocence andhiring the legal team that will represent them at the trial that beginsJan. 22 in Hertford County Superior Court.
"As the trial is about to start, we remind all interested parties thatthere was absolutely no cruelty involved in this case, that PETA hasonly ever helped animals in dire straits in North Carolina, and that ifjustice is served these facts will be made clear," a spokeswoman, ErinEdwards, wrote in an e-mail Thursday.
Although only Hinkle and Cook, two low-level staffers, are facing charges, the policies of the entire organization are on trial.
Critics have charged that many of the group's loyal supporters will beshocked when details of PETA's euthanasia policy emerge. TheVirginian-Pilot reported that the group euthanized more than 6,000animals between 2001 and 2003, about 83 percent of those it collected.
Officials with the group maintain that while Hinkle and Cook may haveexercised poor discretion in dumping the animals behind thesupermarket, they and other employees who did similar work were actinghumanely when they euthanized animals removed from shelters.
Those who say otherwise, PETA claims, are not realistic about thefuture of the estimated 6 to 8 million dogs and cats left at U.S.shelters annually.
Statistics compiled by the national Humane Society indicate that onlyabout half of the strays will be adopted. The rest will be put todeath. PETA insists that in the case of the "unadoptable" the old,sick, antisocial or not housebroken it is more compassionate toeuthanize them immediately than to let them live in shelters, wherethey may be mistreated.
"Critics may condemn PETA for supporting euthanasia, but we are notashamed of providing a merciful exit from an uncaring world to brokenbeings," Daphna Nachminovitch, PETA's director of domestic animalissues, wrote in an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle shortlyafter the arrests.
That stance is controversial in the animal rights community.
"The responsibility we have to animals doesn't mean giving them apainless death. It means coping with their challenges like we would afamily member or a child," said Rich Avanzino, the president ofMaddie's Fund.
His organization, endowed with $300 million by PeopleSoft founder DavidDuffield, advocates making the United States a "no-kill nation," whereanimals are only euthanized if they are dangerous or suffering from anincurable condition.
The trial, which is scheduled to last a week, will focus on PETA'sinvolvement with three rural counties in the northeast part of thestate.
According to PETA, the group first became involved with North Carolinastrays several years ago when they received a phone call from a policeofficer outraged at the conditions in county shelters.
"Some of the counties were euthanizing animals by shooting them in thehead with an old rifle. Others were using a leaky and ineffective gaschamber," Cook's lawyer, Mark Edwards, said.
PETA agreed to collect animals several times a week and take them totheir headquarters in Norfolk, Va., about 50 miles away. What wassupposed to occur there is disputed. County officials say they wereunder the impression that the group would try to find loving homes forthe animals.
One veterinarian, Patrick Proctor, said that when he handed the blackcat and her kittens to Hinkle and Cook, they cooed over the animals andsaid they would be easy to place.
"They were saying, 'My, what beautiful animals. We will have absolutelyno trouble finding homes for these,'" the veterinarian told CNN.
PETA officials contend that everyone involved knew that the animalswould be euthanized, and its role was to provide a less painful deathat their lab in Norfolk than they would have experienced by a gun orgas chamber death in the shelter.
"These animals were going to be euthanized, either by PETA or the state of North Carolina," Edwards said.
Newkirk has said that Hinkle and Cook deviated from PETA policy bydisposing of the bodies in the Dumpster rather than cremating them.
Hinkle, who was more senior than Cook, normally assigned to the group'sWeb site, was suspended for 90 days, but both defendants continue towork for the group.