Fifth Midwest barn fire in one month destroys rodeo equipment and training arena.
A massive fire destroyed a barn used by a rodeo in southern Illinois last night. The fire consumed the entire building and its contents, which included “expensive” equipment used for an annual rodeo. The was no word from investigators about a possible cause.
The fire destroyed a facility east of St Louis used by “Optimist Rodeo”. The organization holds an annual rodeo, which was scheduled to be held in June. There is no word on if the rodeo will be cancelled, or how the fire will affect the event.
I posted last week about four other recent farm fires in the Midwest, including three on the same night in which arson was ruled “probable”. One of these fires destroyed a barn at a dairy farm.
Investigators are calling the rodeo fire “suspicious”, however they note there have been other arsons in the area recently and there is no immediate evidence that activists are responsible.
Victor VanOrden released after serving only three months of his five year sentence.
Awesome news: Victor has been granted parole and should be released today. In February he received an exorbitant sentence of five years for the “crime” of cutting a fence and opening a single cage at the Circle K Fur Farm in Sioux City, Iowa. This week, the judge granted Victor parole, reducing his sentence by over 90%.
His codefendant (and wife) Kellie received a 30 day sentence for the same action. She was released last month.
Kellie and Victor’s case was somewhat unusual in that it was prosecuted on the state level, and not federal. Generally, the feds prefer to take politically charged and / or very high profile cases – particularly animal liberation or eco-sabotage cases. There can be advantages and disadvantages to each, depending on the specifics of a crime, although generally federal cases carry much longer sentences. In this case, Victor and Kellie were fortunate to be charged not just by the state, but a state which has parole, allowing them to be free after serving relatively short sentences.
Welcome home.
In the coming days, I’ll be posting new details that have not been made public about the events that led to their arrest.
Another embarrassing blunder in the “war on terrorism”.
Shortly after I finished giving a talk last month at Utah Valley University, a student called to report the smell of smoke in the Humanities Building. The source of the smell was quickly determined to be a cup of water that had spilled on some wires.
Campus police, aware of the presence of an “eco-terrorist” on campus, quickly made the keystone cop calculation that the smoke must be the work of militant animal rights activists. At some point, the FBI was contacted.
The FBI – the agency on the forefront of “the war on terrorism” – was hot on the case. Soon, an agent was driving “a good distance” to the home of the student who reported the smoke, to question her about the possibility the smoke was the work of an eco-terrorist.
(Some disclosure in the interest of fairness: The person interviewed did not see a badge, and the person only identified themselves as “an agent”. It was her assumption this person was with the FBI.)
When the woman told the agent the smoke was merely a cup of water that had spilled on wires and not “eco-terrorists”, she described the agent’s response as “let down”.
Wearing their true agenda on their sleeve
A couple things to highlight here:
One, a person in law enforcement with a genuine interest in the preservation of law and order and protecting people should have been thrilled the smoke was not the work of an “eco-terrorist” – not disappointed they weren’t getting a gold star for their naive Barney Fife theory failing to pan out.
Keystone cop logic
Second, try to follow the logic at work:
1) Animal rights activists are terrorists.
2) Terrorists set fires.
3) Smoke comes from fire.
Therefore, animal rights activists set a fire.
(…in the Humanities building).
Is this really the chain of logic? Do they really believe their own narrative? Or is there something else going on?
Dean Kuipers in his book Operation Bite Back talks about how completely out of touch most law enforcement is in their understanding of the Animal Liberation Front. When a police officer was interviewed years after an ALF raid of an experimental fur farm at Washington State University, he told Kuipers he had been told – and believed – the ALF carried guns. This belief doesn’t hold up to any scrutiny, and would be funny if it didn’t mean that someone who hops a fence to open cages may actually be shot by a police officer one day.
This kind of unquestioning, robotic behavior among police should not be a surprise. In this instance, their bizarre investigative anti-logic was of no consequence, and only resulted in a fruitless and embarrassing questioning of a college student.
However the framing of activists as free-for-all criminals, committing crimes that are totally disconnected from any purpose (such as setting a fire in a Humanities building, at a school that appears to do little if any animal research), has and will continue to have many consequences in the form of falsely jailed activists and the harassment of everyone around them.
Mysterious fires break out at three Ohio farms on the same night.
In the early morning of April 5th in rural Ohio, fires were set at three nearby farms. All three targeted buildings were completely destroyed. Investigators ruled one of the fires arson, while arson was ruled the “probable” cause of the other two. One of the targeted farms was a dairy farm.
All three buildings were considered a “complete loss,” with destruction of farm equipment, hay and straw. Media coverage pointed out that no animals were hurt, and that none of the targeted buildings housed animals.
One farmer had this to say:
“What people don’t understand is that for a farmer, that barn is sometimes more important than your house,” Skinner said. “Thank God we didn’t have any animals in the barn, thank God!”
The fires occurred at these addresses:
15253 Woodtown Rd., in Sunbury, at 6:08 a.m.
1915 state Route 605, in Sunbury, at 6:26 a.m.
4855 Miller-Paul Rd., in Westerville, at 6:52 a.m.
Although all the fires targeted only buildings where no animals were housed, there was nothing to immediately indicate they were the work of someone with an animal liberation motive.
A barn at a previously unknown fur farm is destroyed by fire.
A rural Indiana newspaper is reporting that embers from a trash can fire set off a blaze that destroyed a barn at a Nottingham, Indiana fur farm. Smoke from the burning building at 9555 S 250 E was said to be visible for miles.
The fire occurred in a mink shed that did not house any animals. According to reports, an “adjacent” building is said to house mink.
News coverage revealed the location of the mink farm, which was previously unknown. The location is said to be a former dairy farm, which converted over to housing mink sometime after 2000. The farm has not been listed in the two primary fur farm address sources: www.finalnail.com or The Blueprint: Fur Farm Intelligence Project Report. It is owned by Lion Farms Indiana LLC of Keystone, Indiana.
In an odd coincidence, the fire occurred three hours west off the same highway as three additional farm fires that occurred a month earlier in Sanbury, Ohio. The second set of fires all occurred on the same night, and all have been ruled arson. One of the targeted businesses was a dairy farm. There has been no public speculation by police of an animal liberation motive.
New report from Bite Back covers an entire year of direct action and the ALF.
The new 2011 direct action report by the editors of Bite Back is out. The 12-page publication summarizes an entire year of actions by the Animal Liberation Front and other groups who work outside the law to save animals. The report includes:
*Full color photos of animal liberations and sabotage actions (great photo of the torched Rocky Mountain Fireworks and Fur in Idaho + more)
*”Ten Best” of 2011 list (including “most destructive” and “best camera work”)
*A complete list of every reported ALF action (and actions claimed by other groups) worldwide.
Get a copy by sending $1 to:
Bite Back Magazine
222 Lakeview Ave
Ste. 160-231
West Palm Beach FL 33401
Kellie Marshall finishes her 60 day sentence for an attempted fur farm raid in Iowa.
Quick note to announce that Kellie Marshall has been released after her (relatively) brief sentence for cutting fences and releasing one mink at the Circle K Fur Farm in Sioux City, Iowa.
Her codefendendant (and husband) Victor VanOrden received a vastly greater sentence of five years for the same incident. In Iowa, first time “offenders” serve approximately 50% of their sentence. Victor’s sentencing judge also indicated she may consider resentencing Victor to less time, though this is not guaranteed.
The Circle K Fur Farm was first raided in 1997. 5,000 mink and 100 fox were released in that action.
Welcome home Kellie.
Write Victor a letter of support:
VICTOR VANORDEN DOC#6916264
NORTH CENTRAL CORRECTIONAL FACILITY
313 LANEDALE
ROCKWELL CITY, IA 50579
A bird breeder posts a response to this week’s article on Animal Liberation Frontline.
Metzer Farms, a breeder of birds for vivisection and food, responded today to Tuesday’s article on Animal Liberation Frontline by taking down a detailed map of their facility from their website, and replacing it with this message:
“Unfortunately we felt it necessary to remove this special drawing of our farm as it was recently displayed on the blog of a animal rights terrorism group as an example of a farm that would be “a prime target” for their organization since we sell animals. This is the same organization that pridefully admitted burning 14 trucks at a California feed lot in January of this year.
Although we have nothing to hide and pride ourselves in our animal care, we do not want to provide a map of our farm to someone that may do harm to us or the animals under our care.
Please keep this in mind when you are asked for a donation to support an animal rights organization or to vote for the legislation they sponsor.”
A couple mistakes here:
*Obviously, the author (probably deliberately) confuses this website with the ALF itself.
*The last paragraph is completely nonsensical.
One last point:
Note this line: “we felt it necessary to remove this special drawing of our farm as it was recently displayed on the blog of a (sic) animal rights terrorismgroup“.
There is nothing about their blog being reposted that makes them any more of a target of groups like the Animal Liberation Front. As all animal exploiters fail to understand, you become a target of the ALF because you imprison and exploit animals. The people behind the above statement totally fail to understand why the ALF does its rescue work.
Places like Metzer Farms do not become targets because someone on a website merely observes they fit the profile of an ALF target – they become targets because they profit from animal suffering. That’s it.
The message of my article and the purpose of posting the map was clear: You cannot on one hand offer large rewards for the capture of ALF members, rally for arrests and claim to be under “siege”, and on the other post detailed maps of your farm visible to everyone. It is a lie told right out in the open.
Read the updated blog post from Metzer Farms here.
When farmers post detailed maps of their farms, “eco-terrorism” fears are exposed as hype.
After the Animal Liberation Front burned 14 trucks at a large stockyard in California, local farmers repeated ad nauseum that they lived in fear of militant animal rights activists and “eco-terrorism”. With literally tens of thousands of stockyards, farms, and slaughterhouses in the Central Valley alone, and only one ALF arson, these cries of an activist “siege” sound suspiciously fake.
To understand that animal abusers are lying about “living in fear” of the ALF, look closely at the website for Metzer Farms. The company breeds birds for laboratories, pets, and meat. As such, it would be a prime target for the Animal Liberation Front. But there is one thing a business legitimately afraid of “eco-terrorists” doesn’t do…
Publish a detailed map of their farm – including which animals are in which buildings. (Click to enlarge)
Below this image on the Metzer Farms site is this list:
1 – Hatchery
2 – Greenhouse (holding many of our small breeder duck flocks)
3 – Brooder Room (for small numbers of birds)
4 – Building 1 (duck breeders)
5 – Shavings and Hay Bunkers
6 – Building 2 (duck breeders)
7 – Building 3 (duck breeders)
8 – South Goose Breeder Pens
9 – Tool/Maintenance Shed
10 – Mallard Pens
11 – North Goose Breeder Pens
12 – Red Barn (brooder building for large flocks)
13 – Our Home (for our brood)
Metzer Farms is in central California, approximately 85 miles from Harris Ranch, the target of the recent ALF action that has elicited so much “fear” from California farmers. This is the region farmers claim are “under attack” by “agri-terrorists”. Their manufactured fear-frenzy has included:
*Offering large rewards for information leading to the capture of the Animal Liberation Front
*Proposed laws that would charge anyone arrested for ALF arsons at stockyards with the same crimes used for fires that kill people.
*An “Agri-Terrorism Seminar“, where farmers will learn from the “experts” how to “protect” their operation.
Bottom line: Animal abusers are exaggerating the threat of the Animal Liberation Front and “eco-terrorism” to further their offensive against all facets of the animal liberation movement.
If they were really afraid, they wouldn’t be handing the world a blueprint of their farm.
Farm Bureau responds to ALF arson with seminar on “animal rights threats”.
After the Animal Liberation Front set fire to 14 trucks at Harris Ranch, the massive California stockyard, the Kings County Farm Bureau announced the will be holding a seminar on “agri-terrorism”. The seminar will discuss “international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction threats, as well as domestic terrorism and animal rights threats.”
This is another example of an entire fraudulent industry that has emerged, in which fake “experts” pretend to have specialized knowledge on “eco-terrorism”, and sell their completely laughable “analysis” to ignorant companies and farmers who fall for it.
For proof of the farce that the “eco-terrrorism threat assessment and analysis” industry is, you need look no further than one of the warning signs that farmers are the “victims’ of the Animal Liberation Front or other “eco-terrorist” groups: “a rise in the number of sick or dead livestock”. Yes, with a straight face the “experts” claim activists may kill farmers’ animals.
A Kings County Farm Bureau Executive said:
“This seminar is an opportunity to learn from the experts what the most current activism movements entail, what to watch out for and how to protect your operation.”
If anyone wants to attend and is willing to send a report, audio, or video on the seminar, I would be very interested to post on Animal Liberation Frontline. The details are:
According to Bite Back, the Animal Liberation Front has taken credit for two egg farms raids which saw the rescue of nine chickens.
According to the communique, the first was in January, where six chickens were liberated from an unspecified farm in Oregon. The second was in February, where three chickens were liberated in Washington, also from an unspecified farm.
The ALF communique describes the actions as “small”, but I disagree.
The full communique reads:
“Some small actions:
January 2012: 6 hens were removed from an intensive egg farm located in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.
February 2012: 3 chickens were rescued and re-homed from a broiler farm in Washington state.
Escaping the horrors of the factory farm, these individuals will live out the remainder of their lives in freedom in open fields.
Solidarity with non-cooperating green scare prisoners and those on the run.
I’m posting a note below that was found folded under a chair after last week’s Animal Ethics Conference in Provo, Utah. It was scrawled on a comment card given to attendees to provide feedback to the speakers and organizers, then left on the ground after my talk.
There is nothing particularly eventful about the FBI lurking around an animal rights event. Yet if this note is authentic, the undertone of urgency is somewhat interesting. It appears to be written from the position of someone who is working as an FBI informant, or is privy to info on who is, while not actually being an FBI agent themselves.
There are two possible theories here. The note is either:
*An authentic note left by an informant the FBI seeded the audience with, who didn’t wish to reveal themselves.
*Deliberately planted disinformation to spread fear among speakers and the conference organizers who host them.
To me, the note reads much more like someone feebly trying to assuage their conscience than anyone genuinely unsupportive of their employers / handlers work.
Animal Liberation Frontline receives new photos of burned fur feed supplier revealing building is totally out of commission.
In December, what may be the largest mink feed supplier in the country went up in flames. While the Utah Fur Breeder’s Agricultural Co-op (outside Salt Lake City) has been targeted by the Animal Liberation Front in two past arson attacks, this fire was ruled “accidental”. The fire was said to have been caused by sparks from a welder’s torch.
There have been no reports until now about how extensive the fire was, or what effect it would have on the building. New photos received by Animal Liberation Frontline reveal the fire has completely shut down the Fur Breeder’s Agricultural Co-op.
The media reported heavily on the fire, but there were no follow up reports on the extent of the damage. These photos show the damage was greater than originally reported. One sign on the door of building described the building as a “total loss”.
This information is significant for the future of the fur farming industry in Utah (the country’s second-largest fur farming state) because of this business’s importance. Mink farms in the past have been forced to close down after the plant cut them from their delivery route. With the Fur Breeder’s Cooperative out of commission, it raises the question: What will this mean for the fur industry in Utah?
Posted below are the 14 photos received by Animal Liberation Frontline. They show, among other things:
*Large portions of the building demolished, with only the foundation remaining
*A sign declaring the building has been deemed unsafe for entry
Taking pre-orders for Vegan Nation, an animal liberation novella.
I’m really happy to announce the next book released by Warcry Communications: Vegan Nation by Rick Bogle.
Our first fiction release, Vegan Nation is an incendiary animal liberation novella by longtime activist Rick Bogle. Vegan Nation tells the story of an activist who launches an outlaw campaign to stop animal abusers for good, in a militant effort to spark a vegan revolution.
Vegan Nation was first published in 2009. It didn’t come to my attention for two more years, and after reading it in 2011, I felt it never received the distribution and attention it deserved. I contacted Rick Bogle about doing this formal re-release, giving it some global distribution and a bigger push to a wider audience.
With a new layout and formatting, this edition is slated for a May 1st release. We’re now accepting pre-orders through the Warcry Communications website.
From the annotation:
***
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln stated that slavery would not end for at least a century. In 1859, abolitionist John Brown waged a war of weapons against slaveholders, shortening this time to seven years. He is now recorded in history as “the man who killed slavery”.
Today, animals are killed by the billions for food and science, while activists who lawfully protest this cruelty are vilified and imprisoned as “terrorists”.
In time, those responsible for this violence may very well reap what they have sown.
This is the story of one such future. It is a story of a present-day John Brown, bringing the war against animals home to their abusers – a last recourse that may finally bring about a vegan nation.
![rodeo3[1]](https://i0.wp.com/animalliberationfrontline.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/rodeo31.jpg?ssl=1 "rodeo3[1]")
![rodeo[1]](https://i0.wp.com/animalliberationfrontline.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/rodeo1.jpg?ssl=1 "rodeo[1]")
