top of page

Welcome to Crime and Justice News

Crime and Justice News

FBI Probes Animal Rights Groups Under Mass Destruction Laws

In January 2019, a group of animal rights activists descended on a poultry farm in central Texas. Donning plastic gloves, medical masks, hazmat suits, and T-shirts emblazoned with “Meat the Victims,” they slipped through the unlocked door of a massive, windowless barn. They found 27,000 chicks densely packed across the floor, like “just a sea of yellow,” recalled activist Sarah Weldon. “There were a lot of chicks that were already deceased, in various stages of decomposition. Some were so deformed you couldn’t even tell they used to be baby chicks, just fluffs of feathers.” The group uploaded gruesome photos of injured and dead chicks to social media platforms. Weldon thinks this is how police identified her and issued a warrant for her arrest, along with 14 other activists. She was charged with criminal trespassing, a Class B misdemeanor.


An FBI agent in Texas had been secretly monitoring the demonstration. His focus? Weapons of mass destruction, reports The Intercept. The FBI has collaborated with the meat industry to gather information on animal rights activism, including Meat the Victims, under its directive to counter weapons of mass destruction (WMD), say agency records obtained by the nonprofit Animal Partisan through Freedom of Information Act litigation. The records show that the bureau has explored charging activists who break into factory farms under statutes that carry a possible sentence of up to life in prison — including for the “attempted use” of WMD — while urging meat producers to report encounters with activists. Animal rights lawyers and advocates view this new frontier for WMD allegations as a pretense to legitimize the prosecution of animal rights activists. “This kind of escalation in charging or threats of charges is textbook escalation by government actors against successful efforts by social movements that they disagree with or find subversive,” said Justin Marceau, a law professor who runs a legal clinic for animal activists at the University of Denver. “The very framing of civil disobedience against factory farms as terrorism is a form of government repression.”


75 views

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


A daily report co-sponsored by Arizona State University, Criminal Justice Journalists, and the National Criminal Justice Association

bottom of page