Horse Racing -- Money More Important than Horses' Health

How many animals do you care for? How much time to you personally give going out and caring for animals? Or do you just sit on you behind and type out what everyone else should be doing when you are not?

PETA Employees Face Felony Animal Cruelty Charges

In the early hours of June 15, 2005, two employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) were arrested in Ahoskie, North Carolina, and charged with 31 felony counts of cruelty to animals . A Grand Jury later indicted each defendant on 21 counts of Animal Cruelty and 3 counts of Obtaining Property By False Pretenses. PETA employees Andrew Cook and Adria Hinkle are expected to face a trial in Hertford County (NC) Superior Court on November 13, 2006. A few days after the arrests, local authorities told Greenville, North Carolina's WNCT-TV News that they had found more than 70 additional dead animals that may be connected to PETA.

When Ahoskie police arrested Cook and Hinkle, they discovered 18 dead animals in a shopping-center dumpster (including a bag containing dead puppies), and 13 more dead animals (including two kittens) in the PETA-owned van the two were driving . Police observed them throwing several dark-colored bags into the dumpster before the arrests were made. The animal-cruelty investigator for the Northampton County (North Carolina) sheriff's department shared her outrage with the Virginian-Pilot a few days after the arrests: "Some animals have to be euthanized," she told the paper, "but the way this crowd did it is sick."

Witnesses from the Bertie County (NC) Animal Shelter and the Ahoskie Animal Hospital later confirmed that the defendants had collected animals earlier that day on the promise that PETA would find them adoptive homes. And a Bertie County deputy sheriff told reporters that Cook and Hinkle assured the shelter "they were picking up the dogs to take them back to Norfolk where they would find them good homes," later adding that persons identifying themselves as PETA representatives have picked up live dogs from that shelter during the last two months.

Ahoskie veterinarian Dr. Patrick Proctor told reporters that his staff gave a perfectly healthy cat and her two newborn kittens to Hinkle and Cook. "This cat and two kittens I gave them last week," he said, "were in good health and were very adoptable, especially the kittens." Dr. Proctor later added in the Virginian-Pilot: "These were just kittens we were trying to find homes for. PETA said they would do that, but these cats never made it out of the county."

One Norfolk television station aired a heartbreaking interview with the manager of the supermarket whose dumpster became an impromptu pet cemetery. "They just slung the doors [open] and started throwing dogs ... beautiful cats. I saw a [dead] beagle last week that was pregnant ... last week it was 23 or 24 dogs ... it's happened to us nine times ... they drove straight from there, straight here, and disposed of the dogs in 30 seconds."

Another TV news report in PETA's home town revealed in June 2005 that Hinkle and Cook were not licensed to euthanize animals. "We have no records of training PETA employees," a Virginia Department of Agriculture spokesperson told Norfolk, Virginia's WAVY-TV10 News, "because we were informed that euthanasia was being done by a local veterinarian." Neither defendant has a veterinary degree.