Dairy farm worker arrested on 12 counts of cruelty after undercover video goes viral

One of the dairy factory-farm workers who reportedly appeared in an internet video in which multiple men tortured cows has been arrested on 12 counts of animal cruelty. The animal rights group Mercy for Animals shot the undercover footage, and released it online. The video shows men:

• Violently punching young calves in the face, body slamming them to the ground, and pulling and throwing them by their ears
• Routinely using pitchforks to stab cows in the face, legs, and stomach
• Kicking "downed" cows (those too injured to stand) in the face and neck
• Maliciously beating restrained cows in the face with crowbars
• Twisting cows' tails until the bones snapped

You can watch the video, or read about what it contains, here. Be forewarned, it's a real bummer. The arrested worker's mugshot is here. I figured a nice happy free-range bovine was better for this blog post than either of those eyeball-burners.

(Creative Commons-licensed image shot by Flickr user Ferdi's World.)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Anonymous

I wish there was a mugshot showing Mr. Sadist getting a crowbar to the face…
GraemeM

I am against the public having guns, now I have just fond a reason to let them.
Anonymous

Yeah, vegans are the real villans in this story!

Sheesh, man, guilt turns to blaming anger really fast. Look, you don’t have to be board-certified to call yourself vegan. Some vegans eat honey and some don’t. There’s also very diverse motivations. Some people do it because they love the animals. Other people are worried about their carbon footprint. Some people are trying to stay thin.

Which is well beside the point that we really don’t know where our food comes from or what happens on industrial farms. We trust our food producers to behave ethically, but there’s little government oversight and people, being complex animals, aren’t solely motivated by the profit motive and may be doing things we don’t really want to reward them for.
CastanhasDoPara

As far as I know the term “bummer” was originally used by ranchers when they would find a dead animal. I mention this because that little bit of folk etymology caused a slight bit of dissonance in my mind while reading the article. Still though this is some horrible stuff that again reinforces for me that some people in general are scum. On the other hand, some of the comments here have reinforced for me that there are a lot of people that are not scum. Whatever the case, the good people barely make up for the scum of the world. We as a whole need to try harder to not be scum, condone scum or allow scum to do scummy things.
igpajo

I’d like to show that video to the prisoners that a-hole will be spending time with. Make sure he gets the same treatment. And please castrate this bastard while they’re at it. I pray this man never has children.
Bungle

This is exactly the kind of sadistic mentality present in the following kinds of people:

1.Military Personnel
2.Riot Police
3.Police Officers
4.Satanists (Do as thou wilt)

Death to the swinging dick of insecure males who use cruelty to feed their egos. Castrate these fuckers before they join the army, get an army wife and reproduce.
- invictus
  
  You forgot communists, witches and (for the UK audience) gingers.
  
  Seriously, dude, Satanists? WTF? Why not blame the whole thing on violent bicycle messengers while you’re at it and call it a day?
Keenan Pepper

Those of you who are not vegetarian, yet still making *extreme* comments denouncing this (e.g. that these men should be tortured and killed), I’m curious what your thought processes are.

Are you seriously of the opinion that RAISING SUCH ANIMALS TO BE KILLED AND EATEN is totally fine, but this (non-lethal) violence is utterly evil and should be a capital offence?

Somehow I think if people were doing equivalent things to an animal that’s less similar to humans (say, a sea anemone), you wouldn’t be so up in arms about it.

Just something to think about.
- druranium
  
  Yes, it’s amazing how many self-professed animal lovers can suspend their disbelief.
  
  Killing and eating=ethical
  
  Beating for kicks=unethical
  
  Let’s imagine these cows were “people”. The above reasoning would be seen as absurd.
- dequeued
  
  I enjoy eating the flesh of other living creatures.
  
  If there were a way I could eat human without someone being murdered or violated, I would probably try it.
  (Like if human flesh were grown in a vat)
  
  That said, I find the behavior of the people in these videos abhorrent, and disgusting.
  Probably because it’s so cowardly and cruel.
  
  Part of me would like to see them put in a cage and poked and prodded all day.
  
  I want to make it clear that there is almost no conflict between opposing animal cruelty, while also killing and eating animals.
  
  As long as the animals are treated with dignity and basic respect, and are culled in a relatively painless way.
  
  Do I like the idea of killing animals?
  NO
  Does it make me sad to think about cute animals being killed?
  YES
  
  But, this is the price we must pay.
  
  The real hypocrites are the vegans.
  Those guys suck.
  
  Self-congratulatory fools, thinking that their DIET of all things is ethical.
  
  You cannot live in our society, and not benefit from animal exploitation.
  And it’s infantile to think you can.
  And it’s conceited to think that you’re better than me because you refuse to eat meat.
  
  Animals are killed every day by human activity.
  They’re hit by cars, they have their habitats destroyed, etc.
  Should a vegan abstain from driving, so that they don’t run anything over?
  
  I’m not bashing the vegetarian diet.
  I was raised a vegetarian, and I lost a lot of weight by only eating fruits and veggies for 6 months.
  
  In conclusion, eat a goddamn cheeseburger, and save the cows.
- wylkyn
  
  There is a vast difference between killing an animal or plant for food, and the deliberate torture of a defenseless living thing. In answer to your supposition: yes, I would have a problem if someone was doing this to a sea anemone. I don’t step on bugs, if I can help it. I also don’t rip the leaves off of plants unless I’m planning to eat them. But let’s face it – whether you are an omnivore or a vegetarian, you exist because other living things die. Your victims just happen to be plants. Do you feel justified because plants are far enough away from humans to be less worthy to live?
  
  Here’s a question for you in the same vein as the supposition you threw out there – if you were given the choice to rip the wings off a cockroach or cut down a 300-year-old redwood, which one would you choose and why? Would you value the plant’s life over that of the animal? Why or why not?
  
  I’ll expect your essay on my desk by the end of the day.
  - Andrew McNicol
    
    Can you actually outline a real situation where such a choice would be presented? I think these hypothetical examples are a little absurd and counterproductive, don’t you?
    
    If you really want to have the plant argument then, OK: an omnivorous diet requires many times more vegetables to sustain than a vegetarian or vegan one. By not eating meat, and if we are to view plants as beings worthy of consideration, we are acting in a way which produces far less suffering (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926731.700-what-is-your-dinner-doing-to-the-climate.html).
    
    But your argument does assume that plants do suffer in some way. Without a nervous system, how do you propose this happens?
    
    I do agree that our treatment of plants is worthy of consideration (we have far too much control over other species we share the planet with), but I think choosing a diet or lifestyle choices which reduces such a negative impact should be congratulated, not ridiculed for vague, unsupported claims of hypocrisy.
Miss Jess

I could hardly stand to read the description as well, I think watching the video would make me physically ill. I can’t believe how evil some human beings can be. Absolutely evil.
hijukal

I wouldn’t have said eye-for-an-eye was a fair and reasonable punishment for, well, just about anything.

But then I watched the first two scenes and then quit. And now believe these guys deserve an eye-for-an-eye and much, much worse.

Tar, feather, hang, draw, quarter them. Then we’ll start on their real punishment.
pinehead

I’m not going to watch the video or read the news report. Stories like this are as common as rain, nowadays. They arrested one man, that’s it. He’ll be free in a year, maybe two. In the meantime, his buddies and other crazy stockyard workers will beat their cattle even more brutally than before, and all that will happen is what’s happening in this thread right now: nothing significant.

If I had my way, the laws governing the treatment of any life, human or not, would be terrifying. I believe that all torture should be met with immediate death. Anyone who displays a predilection to torture is a person with problems on the genetic level and should be eliminated. Let’s start a eugenics program based on preserving some semblance of happiness and dignity for all life, even those who exist solely to feed us.
benher

I was a veggie for 5 years before I reverted to an unapologetic meat eater.

And though I am not religious I try to remind myself just a bit before each meal that there was a form of life that was extinguished so that I might be nourished for another day.

Torturing animals is unforgivable, not only because of the benefits that humans reap from their company (both social and utilitarian) but also because they are living things.
eander315

I hope the police spend at least a little time investigating these people. I highly doubt they stopped at animals.
SoylentG

If you click the first link after the jump
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ifztoqZce_892PkW9PkxIwnvTB9gD9FUPA000

You’ll see that this guy will get a MAX of 3 years in jail. Bummer. Also, there weren’t 12 people involved, but 12 counts. There are about 3 or 4 people in the video.

The 20 hours of video was taken as part of undercover investigation which lasted about 3 weeks.
Antinous / Moderator

Moderator note: Keep it civil, please. And don’t repeat yourselves.
Anonymous

the whole rigid “morally vegan” argument doesn’t survive scrutiny. Ethically, by participating in society and using electronics and gadgets to post on boing boing from your air conditioned flat you are a critical cog among many in a giant machine that has done far worse than beat animals in a factory farm. So if you want to call yourself vegan and carry the banner in that small, mostly insignificant crusade, please do not think you’re on some enlightened high ground compared to people like me who eat abused factory meat. The generalized vegan position is logically absurd given the sophistication of modern life and the gravity of dozens of issues we necessarily neglect daily.
- Andrew McNicol
  
  Your argument suggests that because a person can’t be entirely ethical and make the best choices in every case, their positive actions should not be praised; rather, they deserve to be ridiculed because it’s possible to be perfect. This logic leads to a society where positive actions are not rewarded.
  
  If a person is given a choice and they take the path they feel is most ethical, I feel they should be congratulated.
  
  “The generalized vegan position is logically absurd given the sophistication of modern life and the gravity of dozens of issues we necessarily neglect daily”
  
  You’re projecting assumptions about lifestyle habits on a whole group of people (vegans) in order to discount the positive effects of their actions. I don’t think that’s productive, logical and/or cool.
ultranaut

Turn these fuckers into a cheeseburger and I’ll gladly chow down.
Jebediah

Thanks for the picture choice. As it is, I could barely stand to read the summary of what they did.
hoffmanbike

that jackass looks all too happy in his mugshot.

i’m all for murdering cows (and other animals) for food, but do it quickly, don’t torture them.
wil9000

On this, I’m going to have to go “an eye for an eye” on their asses, and wish that we could do to them exactly what they did to the cows.
Manooshi

Yeah, just the summary alone made me break down into tears. Major bummer! WTF is wrong with people??

There needs to be more severe consequences/laws for animal cruelty in this country. Fucking-A!!

I hope all 12 of those douchebags have to spend the rest of their lives in jail. They should be forced to be vegans for the rest of their lives as well.
Anonymous

Thanks for the “bummer” warning.
Anonymous

That is one of the most horrific, cruel and sadistic things I have ever witnessed. This man has no compassion for the animals under his care. I can only wonder how this story would have differed if he had worked in a home for the elderly or a care home for those with special needs rather than on a dairy.

Truly inexcusable cruelty.
Anonymous

“An eye for an eye” should apply to this crime.
KremlinLaptop

I’m not quite certain I understand your reasoning; so because people are fine with one thing then it stands to reason they should be fine with another thing where the two are only marginally related in that both involve cows? This is some strange cousin of the slippery slope argument where the person presenting it points down at the rest of us from his high horse and proceeds to tell us how we’re all hypocrites because our opinions don’t fit in with his particular brand of logic.

Slaughtering cattle for meat is not the same as sick fucks torturing cattle for kicks. I’m sure you have the capability to make this distinction, but I suppose you wouldn’t get to sneer so much if you did.

Also? Those are dairy cows.
- http://www.xeni.net Xeni Jardin
  
  Also? Those are dairy cows.
  
  Not so fast, dude.
  
  Not going to insert myself into the bigger internet-fight to be had here, and lord knows I don’t want to get into vegan/omnivore arguments… but as a point of factual clarification: dairy cows in factory farm settings that can no longer produce milk (or enough of it to be considered productive) are routinely slaughtered for meat.
  - KremlinLaptop
    
    I think there’s a distinction to be made between dairy cattle and beef cattle even if dairy cattle are slaughtered once they’re no longer able to produce milk. In so much that one is truly raised with the sole purpose of being slaughtered for meat while the other has economic value in life — well for awhile, at least.
    
    However, them being dairy cows or beef cows doesn’t change that slaughtering them for meat isn’t equivalent to torturing them regularly (weekly, daily? fuck) for what I must assume is years on end. One of these things, while being seen as reprehensible by some, has actual value in that the majority of humans consume meat while the other is just psychotic, and comparing the two seems — at least to me — disingenuous.
- Anonymous
  
  Heh. “[O]nly marginally related”, are they? One important thing shared by A) killing animals for food and B) torturing them for fun is that in both cases we are harming animals for pleasure. That’s the point that Keenan Pepper was trying to make.
  
  It’s true that the folks in this video could do something else for fun. And you could eat something else for dinner.
  
  Either unnecessary meat-eating and animal-torture are both wrong, or they’re both okay. But (I submit) you can’t have it both ways.
  - KremlinLaptop
    
    Once again it’s a disingenuous comparison where you attempt to couch your own opinions in this either/or language where you present an extreme and then demand that there is absolutely no middle-ground because from your perspective you can’t perceive it.
    
    I’m fine with killing my food and you’re not, we will disagree endlessly. This in my opinion has nothing to do with psychotic fucks who are obviously indulging in torturing defenceless animals.
    - SKR
      
      The distinction I believe is suffering.
Anonymous

I grew up around cows. We didn’t have them but my best mate’s family had. And dude.. you do not pullt his kind of shit on your cows. You treat them well, becuase a happy cow is a productive cow. or a tasty cow.

these so-called men should be shot.
stegodon

well, i made it less than a minute into that and teared up. i could honestly take their lives without remorse. i would feel less if those things were being done to other people. my dog is licking my face right now because he can sense i’m upset. i’m going to have a scotch… or do some pushups, or both. FUCK
Johnny One Spur

You’ll love this part, from a follow-up article in The Columbus Dispatch:

“Gregg [the one arrested] told Judge Grisgby that he is a wounded Army veteran of the Iraq war and that he is studying to become an Ohio police officer.”
- Dewi Morgan
  
  Oh that’s gold! That’s… deeply bleak, painfully ironic, comedy gold.
Anonymous

CAN’T – I just CAN’T.
Anonymous

If you think that this guy deserves to have exactly the same thing happen to him that happened to the cow, are you going to eat his packaged remains for dinner? Are you suggesting that someone else eat them? How do you feel about cannibalism?

There are things in this guy’s behavior that I can not condone. Using the resources of society to stop them seems warranted to me. However, some reactions to this thoughtless and cruel behavior are equally thoughtless (and bloodthirsty as well). By descending to that level so quickly and zealously, aren’t you promoting the very obscene behavior against a living being that you claim to abhor?

Some people have a lot of problems. Sometimes they can see them, sometimes they are blind to them.
- dequeued
  
  I would eat his flesh for dinner.
  I don’t see any kind of contradiction.
  
  Meat eaters already accept that they’re eating flesh.
  The only reason most of us don’t eat long pork is because it would involve murder (murder, as opposed to just killing)
  - knoxblox
    
    People eat animals and animals eat people. I can accept that.
    
    However, if when he died, I was given the choice of eating him instead of a cow to make a few animal rights supporters happy, I probably would…
    …if he was tasty enough and served up with some barbecue sauce.
    
    As far as I know, cannibalism is not a crime, but mutilation of a corpse is, so that’s a brain teaser in itself.
  - stegodon
    
    *they’re, not “their”
    
    &
    
    per you, “Yes, they feel pain, and cruelty is wrong, and anyone who is cruel to an animal is sick, and a society that encourages animal cruelty is a sick society.”
    
    I don’t think we have anything a dozen or so Mirror Ponds couldn’t reasonably hash out. Or some hash, for that matter. Anyway, good night.
    - dequeued
      
      I’m pretty sure I used the right “their”
      As in, their honey.
      
      Not, they are honey.
Anonymous

There’s something seriously wrong in the head with people like that. We raise animals for meat, but we treat them humanely and slaughter them as quickly and uneventfully as possible. It is heartbreaking to see what some people think it is ok to do to animals just because they can.
dequeued

Oh, I would like to make something else clear.

ANIMALS ARE A LOWER FORM OF LIFE.

It’s true.

They’re not entitled to human rights, because they’re NOT HUMAN.
They’re not persons.

Yes, they feel pain, and cruelty is wrong, and anyone who is cruel to an animal is sick, and a society that encourages animal cruelty is a sick society.

But, they’re not conscious, they don’t really have minds in the way people do.
They are capable of certain types of more primitive learning, but they’re not really capable of *thinking*

When cows are sitting in a field grazing, they’re not pondering their existence, or talking to their friends.
Their only concern is eating grass.

So, if a farmer provides animals with an environment that caters to their natural state, then the farmer is HELPING the animal.
If we had to apply some kind of ethics to this, then I would say that a farmer who provides an animal with a good environment, in exchange for culling it, is doing GOOD.

I can’t believe that PETA treats animals like people.
It’s insulting to people.

And it gets even more absurd with honey bees.
Bees have it pretty good.
They’re catered to, and all they have to do is do what comes naturally to them, no strings attached.
And humans collect their waste, and sell it.

How exactly is that exploitation??

If some massively advanced alien life form offered to let you live your life in complete luxury, and gave you whatever you wanted, and, in exchange, fed on the contents of your septic tank, would you say that you were being “exploited”

Please allow me to weep for those poor bees that are having their honey stolen.

And, they’re BEES.
They actually DON’T feel any pain, even if we were harvesting them directly.
They’re autonomous drones that form an emergent swarm.

How far will this logic go?
How long until PETA starts bitching about single-celled organisms?

Creatures live, creatures die.
Creatures violently consume other creatures.
GET OVER IT
LIFE IS PAIN AND THE STRONG EAT THE WEAK

100,000 years ago, nature rewarded the sociopaths, the cannibals, and the rapists.
THIS IS INSIDE ALL OF US
- Mitch
  
  That’s a very convenient hierarchy that puts you at the top, based on criteria that you define.
  
  Whether or not animals have human measurable intelligence, they do have the capacity for suffering and that is reason enough for us to have an obligation to treat them humanely.
- stegodon
  
  I understand the absurdity of the bee-exploitation-honey thing, but why bother being so angry at vegans (I’m not vegan, I had salmon steaks for dinner and they were rad) but I can’t help thinking of vegan bashing as being on par with Kurt Vonnegut’s description of literary crticism, “He or she is like a person who has put on a full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae or a banana split.” Dude, their generally innocuous, maybe a little self- righteous, but not really as heinous as these miscreants bashing cows in the head with a crowbar, no?
- voided
  
  dequeued:
  A video of horrendous torture and all you can think of is to vent your grand anti-vegan rant? Some defence mechanism there!
  
  “LIFE IS PAIN AND THE STRONG EAT THE WEAK”
  That slogan sounds eerily familiar…
  
  Please google “argument from marginal cases” and then reflect on what you’ve just written.
- Cydonia
  
  I agree. PEETA is just plain insane. We can treat animals like animals and still be kind and humane to them. They’re NOT people, but they are living things that we must not abuse for our own enjoyment. We eat animals, just as we have for millions of years.
Anonymous

This makes me sick.

I’m totally with poster #3 – across the country judges should concern themselves with *one issue only* in animal (and child) abuse cases; did the adult standing before them actually do the thing with which he’s accused? If the person’s guilt is established, the penalty for the offender should be exactly what *they* did to the innocent.

So in Mr.Billy Gregg Jr’s case a pitchfork and repeated punches to the face should be easily justified. I’m serious, we shouldn’t put up with crap like this in civilized society.
Stumpadoodle

Who are the animals here, again?
limepies

oh my fucking god. that video is absolutely horrible, i can’t manage more than ten seconds or so.

i’m really happy they’re arresting this douche and putting it to court. i hope they get all the other assholes as well, and change some of the regulating laws to boot. this has been going on way way way too long.
stegodon

@75 I’ll concede that. There’s something hard-wired in my brain about animal cruelty. I’m a Prius-driving, mountain-living, quinoa eating, rescue-dog harboring, yoga mat-toting, generally peaceful motherfucker, but I couldn’t restrain myself from going at these bastards. Not to get all Mickey Rourke on you, but my best friends happen to be animals. I wouldn’t go as far to condone ‘eye for an eye’ but I would certainly sleep better knowing these wastes of sperm&eggs were no longer out there in the world.

I agree that some people are blind to their problems, but if those problems entail inflicting pain on other sentient beings without reason.. I can’t abide that shit.
ben

Most farmers I know of treat their animals like gold, seeing as how they are a major source of income. I can’t see as how people could a) be so dumb to damage property and b) be so malicious to go so far as the acts described.

I find myself on the robot end of the empathy scale but even I have trouble stomaching this one.
- ToMajorTom
  
  True…most farmers treat their money-making animals well. But I wonder if these 12 goobers are farmers in the traditional sense or corporate farm hands hired by the likes of ConAgra (or others) to mass produce food and animals?
- KremlinLaptop
  
  The thing is, as far as I’ve understood, these weren’t farmers as such — they just worked there. So to them they probably see the cows as ‘company property’ and so it doesn’t matter to them what happens to the cows.
  
  I’m not sure if that makes it more sickening, I think it does.
  
  I’ve done some free work at a friends farm, he has highland cattle, not a huge operation but still enough to make a bit of a profit. They get bred and sold on or slaughtered for meat; I’ve done a fair bit of the slaughtering and cutting up parts.
  
  So going to watch the video I imagined part of me — having actually killed fucking cows — would somehow be callous towards what I’d see. Yeah… not so much.
  
  Christ.
  - KremlinLaptop
    
    Edit button, where art thou. Just noticed one of them is identified as the farm owner in the video.
    
    So yeah. Sick fucks.
HerkyDerky

I could only stand about ten seconds also. Terrible.

Anybody have any stats about the correlation between sadism towards animals and sadism towards people? (Besides ‘most serial killers torture animals as children’.)
- Anonymous
  
  I don’t have any stats for you, but I have long suspected that a person who enjoys torturing an animal would enjoy torturing a person if given the chance to do so without getting in trouble.
voided

sdmikev: you’re talking to imaginative strawmen. Read The Case for Animal Rights by Tom Regan or some other prominent animal rights book to see arguments that vegans actually rely on (Preview: honey is not the central issue. Some who call themselves vegan have no problem at all with eating honey.)

If you’re serious in only accepting “humane” killing of animals for meat and milk then I hope you make 100% sure that all such products you buy today are “produced” in that way. You can’t just take the producers word for it. It is evidently clear that the controls are weak or absent and the abuse and dishonest marketing is abundant. You need to yourself verify the sources. If you don’t have the time, if you don’t find products that meet your own “humane” standard, or if you can’t afford them then I hope you stick to your own values and skip meat and milk completely and eat vegetarian food whenever you’re in that situation.
voided

Anon (and maybe also Mark F): you seem to assume that if you can’t be 100% vegan due to animal deaths during crop harvest then that makes it all right to support killing and eat animals intentionally even when you can easily avoid doing so. Why assume that?

Compare your reasoning with this version:

“the whole rigid “moral anti child-labor” argument doesn’t survive scrutiny. Ethically, by participating in society and using electronics and gadgets to post on boing boing from your air conditioned flat you are a critical cog among many in a giant machine that has done far worse than force children to work in factories. So if you want to call yourself anti child-labor and carry the banner in that small, mostly insignificant crusade, please do not think you’re on some enlightened high ground compared to people like me knowingly choose to buy products from clear cases of child labor even when I can easily avoid it. The generalized anti-child labor position is logically absurd given the sophistication of modern life and the gravity of dozens of issues we necessarily neglect daily.”
Mark Frauenfelder

Since we don’t draw and quarter criminals any longer, life in prison will do for this sicko.
Anonymous

I think I just became vegan. I cannot describe the emotions that that video made me feel. I pray for the eternal damnation of that man’s soul.
Anonymous

I wonder how many “farmers” ben knows. There are so few farmers now. What there are though are workers who work on industrial farms. I imagine most of them would like to treat animals with respect too, but the reality is the means of production, the obligation to make money and make it fast, doesn’t allow for kind treatment. So we can hate these people as sick anomalies or realize our food production system is broken and support a vegan, vegetarian or other ethical lifestyle of choice.
Anonymous

Thank you so much for posting this… devastating but necessary reminder.
Red Leatherman

I didn’t have to see that video to believe it, I still have vivid recollections of the ones I have seen in the past.
I guess it’s something that gets into some people with authority. I do however think that the dairy factory-farm workers have a lower percentage of fuckin sadistic morons than some other vocations.

But if the perpetrators were cops and the victims were people,
wouldn’t we be giving them 2 weeks suspension with pay?
- eyebeam
  
  Because those are the jobs that sociopaths and psychotic morons have to take. No one else wants them around.
  
  This is why it is so essential to have insane asylums with transparently operated work programs. Basically we have to decide if we want psychotic sociopaths living among us, or will we pony up and put them away in a humane manner.
  
  Make it voluntary – they have the choice of having guaranteed work in exchange for having everything they do monitored on the internet and restricted from unconsenting, and vulnerable people and animals.
Anonymous

Oh god, I’m not particularly sensitive to internet shock videos, but watching this one makes me physically ill- especially hearing what he says to the animals as he abuses them :( :( :(
I hope they show this video to the other inmates at whatever correctional facility he ends up at- I have a feeling the treatment he’d get would help him understand just why cruelty is so effing wrong.
Patrick Austin

Why the hell did the guy with the camera stick around to film for so long? I think there was enough video to convict this asshole by about the 20 second mark.

More interested in proving your point about the cruelty of farming than in actually doing something to help a cow?
- Anonymous
  
  I see your point about stopping the film to help the cow, but if theses guys will torture a helpless animal, what would they do to the guy who turns out to be an undercover animal activist? Personally, I would be very afraid if I was in his position.
- eyebeam
  
  The guy was working there undercover. What do you expect him to do, start yelling “I’m gonna tell!” at a violent psychopath armed with a pitchfork?
Anonymous

I could only watch the first 5 secs or so of that video. Animals are such beautiful creatures, it really hurts to see or read about this.
WalterBillington

Wow … vegetarianism calls. As for the link between sadism to people vs animals, I think it’d be pretty clear. Nasty is as nasty does.
- HerkyDerky
  
  Then if our animal protection policies aren’t sufficient, I hope a person steps forward.
  
  Of course, I’ve never been very satisfied with the laws against abusive in general.
The Jones Ultimatum

If my first comment didn’t make it,heres attempt 2.

I hope those subhumans are all treated in the same manner as the cows when they get to prison.

Maybe thats what it will take for them to learn how evil they have been?
lekatrik

Petition here for the arrest and prosecution of the dairy owner, Gary Conklin, who was also filmed beating animals in the same films:

http://www.change.org/petitions/view/shut_down_conklin_dairy_farms_and_arrest_and_charge_gary_conklin_and_his_crew_with_animal_cruelty
Anonymous

I would never do those things myself but I have to admit that video got me laughing harder than I have in a long time. That sort of scares me because I know the proper response is to be horrified. Something must be broken in me.
Anonymous

I’m not one to go all tree-hugger on yah… but, wow. The nerve this guy has to post stupid s***t like this on the internet and expect not to get caught/ reprimanded by officials. And poor cows. I know they are live-stock in which are raised to ultimately be destroy and used as sustenance, but wtf… at least the farmers I know don’t let the poor things suffer.

I think this guy should have his arm twisted until his bones shatter inside of his f***ing flesh… Stupid-ass. *hugs hurt cows*

I will say animal cruelty is wrong but I’ll never go vegan.
Anonymous

i steeled myself to watch about 2/3 of the film before i had to stop (was at work and didn’t want to start bawling). this useless sack of carbon goes on at length about how it feels good to beat on them, and how he can’t stop once he starts; it’s truly frightening stuff.

re: studies, here’s one correlating violent youth with animal cruelty:

http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/188677.pdf

and one correlating animal abuse with violent psychiactric disorders:

http://www.jaapl.org/cgi/reprint/30/2/257.pdf

those are the only actual studies that jump out at me. if you’re happy to take information without citation, the american humane society states that “70% of animal abusers also had records for other crimes,” and according to the aspca, “88 percent of families where there had been physical abuse of children, there were also records of animal abuse… [and in] Wisconsin, battered women revealed that in four out of five cases, abusive partners had also been violent toward pets or livestock.”

animal abuse should stand on its own for being a horrible crime, but for those lawmakers who only seem to care about the human species, statistics like these further prove the need for heavier legislation.
voided

So what should be done about this? Put the guy in jail, yeah. But that does not solve the fundamental problem. The root problem lies in any person who eats meat or milk products. The torturer at the animal factory is clearly mentally ill. You on the other hand are not. Yet you have still intentionally bought meat and milk even though you have seen footage like this before and you know that things like this goes on and on. You helped make it happen! As long as you give them money to “produce” animal slaves for almost nothing the animals will suffer the consequences. So what is a more fundamental solution? Stop funding the oppression, stop consuming animals, go vegan. If you’re thinking “I want to eat animals as long as they’ve lived happy lives” then put you money where your mouth is: do the actual research and only buy milk or meat products from sources where you’re 100% certain that the animals involved do live “happy lives”. Until you find and can afford such sources eat only vegetarian food.
Anonymous

it’s sad that most people think slaughtering and using animals them as our resources can be done “humanely”…

it doesn’t really matter how the animal is treated if the USE as such is harming them without a serious reason.
utt73

3 years in prison is still three years of “squeal like a pig, boy.”
Dewi Morgan

I was expecting more “See? All farmers are evil!” rhetoric in the replies. I’m impressed by BB readers that these comments are in the minority.

I’ve worked on farms, even factory farms. The most important thing is to make sure that the animals are *happy*. Well fed, content, and even entertained. Someone else said that farmers “treat animals like gold.” That’s only true if gold lost its value if it became unhappy.

Causing or permitting any kind of avoidable suffering is, then, financially stupid. But if you get your jollies like that, I guess you might feel the loss to your income is worth the money paid. So you could rationalise that away.

But I don’t know any farmer, factory or otherwise, who wouldn’t be horrified at that. I don’t know any PERSON who wouldn’t.

How can people get so… broken? And no, while an eye for an eye is tempting, doing it back to them wouldn’t fix them, either. I don’t know what could. I’d suggest education, but if a farmer’s not one of the most educated people there is about his charges, then who is? So, I don’t know what the answer could be.
- Mitch
  
  My experience with people who mixed animals with profit motive was quite different. The lab animal breeder I worked for gave plenty of lip service to treating animals humanely, but plenty of people who worked there treated them indifferently, failed to care for them properly, and sometimes deliberately mistreated them. I saw a guy slap a rat on the head and when I said that he shouldn’t do that he crossed himself and said “You no understand! It a die soon!”. I also saw guys whipping rats around by their tails and inserting captive, docile rats into rat traps for fun. There was no one to report it to. Rodent facilities are not regulated.
  - Dewi Morgan
    
    In the UK, rodent medical research facilities are regulated. And it’s just plain bad science to treat rats like that anyway. The idea is to keep them all in the same state, as happy as possible, otherwise the drugs don’t work in a reliable fashion. Stressed animals don’t process drugs in the same way at all.
    
    Then again… a breeder. Hrm. Probably a lot less oversight of breeders than the labs themselves, yeah. And no real financial incentive to look after the rats, since they are so cheap and plentiful, and their weight isn’t a relevant part of their selling price.
    
    Bleh :(
Anonymous

You did see this guy wants to be a COP!!! That is very scary.. And he has a girlfriend who is planing to marry him! All I can say is if he does get married I forsee reading about him killing his wife and children in a few years.. She had better do some research into people who do this sort of thing..
paux

And that is why I’m vegetarian.

I hope that guy rots in hell for what he’s done.
Littlesister

“Vegans who don’t eat honey are against man exploiting bees. Bees pollinating plants is part of a bee’s natural existence. Living in a simulated hive towards the sole purpose of creating honey for human consumption is not part of a bee’s natural existence.”â€¨â€¨Please explain to me how bees can be unsatisfied about living in a “simulated” hive and be taking care of every day , reproducing pollinating as they please. In fact they don’t care.Animals don’t care as long as they survive and reproduce. That is their only task. What difference does it make if we exploit their honey for our consumption? The bees are going to be sad because it was their honey? Do we crush the bees as we extract the honey from the hive ? No. Do we kill their larvae? No we don’t. Yes , it is in our nature to exploit animals. You can’t deny that. â€¨â€¨”You talk about the slippery slope of capitalism, where disregard for the lives of certain species leads to systemic cruelty. Vegans recognize this and choose to contribute towards the cycle of cruelty as little as possible. It’s people like you who rationalize and use words feel-good words like “humane” to make yourself feel better about killing billions of animals.â€¨You say that, because humans have hunted and raised animals for eating forever, it is okay. Does the simple fact that something has been done for a long time make it okay? People have murdered one another forever. Some murders are even done “humanely,” according to your twisted concept of humane slaughter. Slavery also existed for quite a long time, it was even condoned by our Constitution. But people eventually realized that it was cruel and thus wrong, and made it illegal.” â€¨Yes , because of capitalism , we consume way too much. I think it is wrong to eat meat in such an amount and of course I think the conditions in which those animals are raised unacceptable. Awareness of those conditions is essential. And too much meat is very bad for our health. But I think sdmikev is right when he/she says that it is luxury of a wealthy society. When an Anonymous said that India is 30% vegeterian – it is not because they had a choice. In contrary, most of them would love to eat meat once a week or so. How do I know that ? India is a developing country and since the development , the meat consumption has increased and it is still increasing. It would be stupid to say that humans are “designed” to eat meat – we could still evolve and we weren’t designed. But I think we can still consume meat and other animal products because they can be very healthy too and some bring essential nutriments to our body that a strictly vegan diet simply doesn’t. Anything radical can’t be good. Of course you can be anything you want but I think the reasonable choice to make would be to be a “occasional-vegetarian”.And to people who are so outraged about that video that they want to do the same to the people who did this – maybe you should interest yourselves in how ALL of the animals raised for our food are treated trough-out the world. Be sure to know where your food comes from and always look for quality-bio-meat.
bbbaldie

I grew up on cattle farms, and my father taught me to have compassion for your charges.

White trash is white trash, no matter the circumstance. If not torturing cows, it would be some other form of life.
Anonymous

I have a question to ask.

It seems like a great deal of progress on animal rights issues has been made in the world-there’s more concern about it than there was twenty years ago, PETA has the kind of money and media access most anti-war organizations could only dream of, and so on. In the United States and Britain in particular, nobody will defend people who abuse animals, and in this case there was swift legal action taken.

But it seems like whenever the police or the military is involved with beating, torturing, or killing human beings-particularly non-Americans or minorities-there’s a line around the block to defend their behavior. In this respect, as a society we seem to care -more- about the welfare of animals than (some) people.

I’ll refrain from any speculation as to why that might be the case.

So my question is not, is cruelty to animals wrong-the answer is obvious-but this: putting aside the social questions for a moment, can you convince me, personally, to really care about animal rights, of all things, given the world we live in?
Cydonia

I’n not a vegetarian, but I believe in human treatment to livestock. We must NEVER be cruel to an animal or cause it unnecessary pain.
People who like to hurt animals make me ANGRY. It’s just pure desire to see another being in pain, one that can’t fight back or tell anyone about it. Boils my blood. These guys should go to prison for life. If they enjoy making pain this much, it’s not a very far stretch to think of them attacking people.
Anonymous

Everything those mfs did to those cows should be done to them and I mean fng everything and in a way preventing them from dying to soon, preferably they should last for at least a week.
Anonymous

So for fun I go out on a boat in the ocean and catch fish which I eat. Part of this means bashing them over the head a couple times with a bat so they bleed out and die quickly. I cannot watch this video. Just reading about this makes me want to puke. Only a complete piece of garbage would torture an animal trapped in a pen.
Anonymous

I have never posted a comment on here before but this just demands some kind of comment.

I unfortunately watched the video and it will probably be in my head forever now. These people are about as evil as it’s possible to be, certainly in my mind on a level with child molestors and murderers. I can only hope that:
A) The people in that video go to jail for a long time (probably unlikely)
and
B) That while they’re in jail they get a bit of what they dished out to these poor animals dished back out to them.

It made me feel like crying watching them torture those calves and cows – One word – Inhuman!
Anonymous

the way the judicial system work in this country I would be willing to bet taht the asses that hurt these anim,als will only get six months and a 2000 fine discusting
sdmikev

I’m usually not shocked at the cruelty of humans. The so-called “higher life form” on the planet.
One of the reasons that I have switched to a diet high in wild, line caught fish is that at least the fish are tortured by some fucking goober before they are dispatched.
Christ on a pony, this is what we get when everything is done ONLY for profit.
- Keenan Pepper
  
  > Christ on a pony, this is what we get when everything is done ONLY for profit.
  
  This comment makes absolutely no sense to me. There is no economic incentive at all for this kind of violence, is there? You don’t get more milk if you torture the cow, and you certainly can’t sell it for more.
  
  So if everything really were done “ONLY for profit”, this kind of thing would never happen and this video wouldn’t exist…
  - sdmikev
    
    Because when the bulk of what is done stops being actual farming and becomes a factory where the only thing on the mind of the people running the place is making as much money as possible. That means you hire cretins and you pay them as little as possible. It means that you focus only on the bottom line.
    It’s not that difficult to draw the line.
    We’ve created a throw away society that leans towards the idea that nothing is sacred and that money trumps everything. That trickles down. These stupid goobers might be serial killers for all we know, but what I know for sure is that when you create a society where humanity is laughed at it becomes a lot easier for something like this to happen. And worse.
Mitch

Oh, this story needs a unicorn chaser:
http://www.careforcows.org/

Well, not exactly. Unicorns are mythical and these people are real.
Anonymous

Extradition to India? I’m sure Hindus wouldn’t be very pleased with him..
Anonymous

Sickening, eye for an eye, wipe that smug smirk off his face.
Anonymous

Please listen.

If you eat meat, you are contributing to torture like this. The are tons of books, videos, photos, essays, etc., documenting massive, perpetual animal cruelty. And the cruelty is perfectly legal. Here is a passage from the book “Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions,” edited by Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum (from the essay “Foxes in the Hen House, by David Wolfson and Mariann Sullivan, pp. 206-207), which may help to educate some of you as to the legal issue being discussed:

“Legal scholarship has failed to recognize that only a tiny percentage of animals with whom humans interact are NOT raised for food, and that the legal status of farmed animals is dramatically different from that of other animals. While nonfarmed animals do have certain protections, albeit inadequate and poorly enforced, upon which future legal developments can be based, it is not unfair to say that, as a practical matter, farmed animals have no legal protection at all. As far as the law is concerned, they simply do not exist. One reason for this reality is the obvious fact that people do not like to think about how farmed animals are raised and killed. This natural reluctance has been used by the farmed-animal industry to perform an extraordinary legal sleight of hand: It has made farmed animals disappear from the law.

It is almost impossible to imagine the number of farmed animals. Approximately 9.5 billion animals die annually in food production in the United States. This compares with some 218 million killed by hunters and trappers and in animal shelters, biomedical research, product testing, dissection, and fur farms, COMBINED. Approximately 23 million chickens and some 268,000 pigs are slaughtered every 24 hours in the United States. That’s 266 chickens per second, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. From a statistician’s point of view, since farmed animals represent 98 percent of all animals (even including companion animals and animals in zoos and circuses) with whom humans interact in the United States, all animals are farmed animals; the number that are not is statistically insignificant.

Certainly, making this many animals disappear from the law is an enormous task. It has been accomplished, in significant part, through the efforts of the industry that owns these animals to obtain complete control, in one way or another, over the law that governs it. While this is not an unusual effort on the part of industry generally, the farmed-animal industry’s efforts have been exceptionally successful. The industry has devised a legally unique way to accomplish its purpose: It has persuaded legislatures to amend criminal statues that purport to protect farmed animals from cruelty so that it cannot be prosecuted for any farming practice that the industry itself determines is acceptable, with no limit whatsoever on the pain caused by such practices. As a result, in most of the United States, prosecutors, judges, and juries no longer have the power to determine whether or not farmed animals are treated in an acceptable manner. The industry alone defines the criminality of its own conduct.”

Furthermore, this “eye for an eye” business is completely misplaced on many levels.

First, you are all only outraged because there is video of this particular instance of cruelty, but, as mentioned in the quote above, the law abides massive cruelty to essentially all animals, as long as the practices are determined to be acceptable BY THE INDUSTRY ITSELF. So, if you are interested in “eye for an eye” justice, there are simply not enough cattlemen to murder to compensate for the vast cruelty that has already been and continues every second to be perpetrated.

Second, and perhaps more important, what these men have done is a crime against compassion. To do to them what they did to these animals would also be a crime against compassion. There is already so much hate and violence in this world. If any of you who are so outraged want to actually make a positive contribution against this kind of cruelty, why don’t you educate yourselves on the actual state of the meat and dairy industries in this country, and then educate those around you.

Because ignorance is not bliss. Not for these poor animals, and certainly not for any of the billions upon billions of farmed animal in this country.
sdmikev

One more thing about eating animals vs being vegan or vegetarian.
I think it’s fairly obvious that the ability to choose to be a vegan or even a vegetarian is luxury of a wealthy society. There are plenty of people on this planet for whom not eating meat means starving. Christ, vegans won’t even eat honey and that’s just weird. Also, it’s pretty hard to raise close to anything without bringing in bees for pollination.
Humans have hunted for and raised animals for eating forever and it can be done in a humane way. Can and should.
- Anonymous
  
  sdmikev, why would you be attacking veganism in this thread? Vegans are the ones who don’t contribute to this kind of madness.
  
  Vegans who don’t eat honey are against man exploiting bees. Bees pollinating plants is part of a bee’s natural existence. Living in a simulated hive towards the sole purpose of creating honey for human consumption is not part of a bee’s natural existence.
  
  You talk about the slippery slope of capitalism, where disregard for the lives of certain species leads to systemic cruelty. Vegans recognize this and choose to contribute towards the cycle of cruelty as little as possible. It’s people like you who rationalize and use words feel-good words like “humane” to make yourself feel better about killing billions of animals.
  
  You say that, because humans have hunted and raised animals for eating forever, it is okay. Does the simple fact that something has been done for a long time make it okay? People have murdered one another forever. Some murders are even done “humanely,” according to your twisted concept of humane slaughter. Slavery also existed for quite a long time, it was even condoned by our Constitution. But people eventually realized that it was cruel and thus wrong, and made it illegal.
  
  Being vegetarian is not “a luxury of a wealthy society.” India is over 30% vegetarian. And besides, you don’t even abide by your own logic – if vegetarianism is a luxury of a wealthy society, a luxury that reduces suffering (something you supposedly support), and you are part of that society, why are you not vegetarian?
  - sdmikev
    
    If it sounds like I am attacking vegans, I appologize. My point about the bees is that the idea it’s not OK to eat honey, but it’s ok to eat fruit that was pollinated by bees trucked around the country in boxes is a little strange. I applaud anyone taking to the very limit their belief that animals shouldn’t suffer. But I do believe that as a civil society, we can raise livestock and hunt and fish in a humane manner and EVERYONE should support that.
    As for poor people vs wealthy societies, there are some like India (if we’re going to call them poor) that as stated have a high percentage of strict vegetarians. The overall point I was making is that in the so-called developing world, you’d be hard pressed to find a strict vegan or vegetarian. They eat what they have to eat, and they’re not going to think twice about wringing a chicken neck..
  - Mark Frauenfelder
    
    Do you personally harvest all the plants you eat or do you outsource that job to people who might accidentally kill animals while harvesting them for you?
- Anonymous
  
  Actually, the exact opposite is true. Most of the world is vegetarian due to poverty. Upkeep of an animal requires lots of resources (something to the tune of 6 calories exhausted for 1 calorie worth of meat). Eating meat is the luxury and consumption increases in a region as it becomes more developed. Just to add to that, it would be environmentally devastating if the entire planet consumed meat at the same rate as the western world. Food for thought :)
- jackie31337
  
  There are plenty of people on this planet for whom not eating meat means starving.
  
  Actually, I think it’s the opposite. Think of typical “peasant” foods from around the world. Generally they consist of whatever the staple starch happens to be in the area (rice, potatoes, noodles) and some kind of cheap protein (often beans, but also offal and other byproducts). Most of the world can’t afford to regularly eat what western first-world countries consider “meat”.
formosan

twats