| Join Our e-List |
 |
|
|
SHARK Investigators Document Abuse, Harrassment in Huntsville TX
|
|
Last Tuesday, March 27, 2007 a SHARK team of three investigators (Janet Enoch, Stephanie Wood and myself) attended a steer busting event at the Walker County fair and rodeo grounds near Huntsville, Texas. As is the case with most steer busting, there were virtually no people present besides the
contestants and a very small number of their friends and family members. The event began at three o'clock in the afternoon, when most people are at work, and was unpublicized. The fact is that the rodeo people really don't want the public to show up for steer busting because it is so brutal to the animal victims. Even most rodeo supporters have little time for this disgusting event.
The trauma inflicted on the animals, especially in these steer busting photos from the Huntsville rodeo, is evident.
Every steer had their tails twisted painfully to "motivate" them to run from the chute. Many who didn't display enough response to the painful twisting, or who tried to avoid the abuse of roping by going down in the chutes had their tails raked over rails. The use of electric prods was routine to move and further "motivate."
 A considerable amount of rain fell during the previous night, so the dirt was still somewhat wet, and this left long drag marks attesting to more of the suffering endured by the steers.
A lot of the steers took some time to regain their senses after they were untied. This is understandable for an animal who, after running in fear from torment in a chute and a man on horseback, is violently jerked head over hooves by an unseen rope, slammed to the ground, and dragged through the dirt face first.
 Numerous animals limped out of the arena. No one outside of the rodeo mafia will ever know how many victims went away with internal injuries sustained from the audible slamming of their bodies onto the arena floor. That's the way it is with steer roping / steer tripping / steer busting. It's the most cruel event in rodeo, conducted by the lowest of the low in the rodeo mafia for virtually no one but themselves.
See video and learn more about the shame that is steer busting here.
Stephanie Wood was the first investigator to attract the attention of rodeo thugs. In response, an individual from the company producing the rodeo and an overstuffed  goon who incredibly passes for law enforcement in Walker County went up to confront her. Constable John Hooks was out of uniform and off duty, but that didn't stop him from abusing his authority by falsely claiming that Stephanie had no right to film the event. Stephanie responded with an assurance that she had every right to film. This of course did not go over well with the constable.
photo left: It
is a mighty scary thing to imagine, but the blue-shirted oaf hulking
over SHARK investigator Stephanie Wood is what passes for law
enforcement in Walker County, Texas! Constable John Hooks attempted to
use his position to abuse Stephanie as she quietly filmed. She was
breaking no laws whatsoever -- no SHARK investigator was -- but that
didn't stop Hooks from threatening, harassing and intimidating
Stephanie, and grievously abusing his authority. The John
Wayne-wannabe rodeo thug standing to the right of Hooks identified
himself as Mark Owens.
Off duty, out-of-uniform Constable Hooks made every effort to throw his considerable bulk around, but interestingly he didn't want to actually give up his name or badge number until Stephanie had made numerous requests. He was more than willing, however, to bully and intimidate Stephanie, including threatening her with jail, as rodeo thugs gathered around to watch the show. It was one lone woman against the rodeo mafia, and Stephanie was winning.
Things became even more lopsided when Janet headed over to give Stephanie some support. Janet called the police, and before long was told what we already knew - that we had every right to be there, and to film. This of course did not sit well with the rodeo thugs. The constable lumbered away for a while, apparently to lick the wounds to his ego. For a while he went and sat over by his rodeo buddies, dispelling any question about his loyalties. He even waved tauntingly at us while he literally sat at the feet of his rodeo mafia bosses, looking like an oversized lapdog, and demonstrating just how easily some members of Texas' law enforcement system can be influenced.
A little later Hooks returned with a new mission - to sit near Stephanie and harass her some more with a display of just how big a moron he is. When Stephanie continued to do her job, Hooks brought in more obnoxious rodeo thugs, but nothing worked. Stephanie continued her work.
 After failing to stop Stephanie's legal videotaping, Hooks enlisted the aid of a couple ladies (using a very
loose interpretation of "ladies") to further harass Stephanie. Their
secret weapon was apparently to make rude and obnoxious remarks and
take pictures. Real braniacs, these characters. Their lowlife tactics
failed to stop Stephanie from doing her job.
After
finally shaking Hooks and his ensemble of idiots, Stephanie is harassed
by two more rodeo thugs. These animal abusers sure get shook up by
videocams!
With Stephanie demonstrating that she simply couldn't be swayed from her mission, the rodeo thugs turned their attention to Janet and me. The thugs were getting mighty uptight about having SHARK at their animal abuse party, especially when some of the animals were crippled by the abuse. Among this group of characters was an especially dubious individual named Marty Jones, a steer roper. Jones started riding by Janet and I in our respective filming positions while giving us the evil eye. This of course had no effect on us whatsoever. Next Jones came by and made some utterly stupid comments, which again had no effect.
With only a short time remaining before the end of the spectacle, Jones could contain himself no longer. Jones rode up next to Janet as she focused on filming a steer coming out of a chute. Without warning, Jones committed battery by putting his hat over her camera, hitting the camera and her in the face. Then Jones rode away on his horse, while Janet demonstrated her strength of character by never missing a beat with her filming.
 Desperation
of the rodeo mafia reaching a fever pitch, steer abuser Marty Jones
prepares to blindside Janet Enoch in a clearly premeditated criminal
act. Nevertheless, his repulsive cowardice did not stop Janet from
doing her work.
As anyone who has ever looked at our CowboyCriminals.com web site knows, this kind of cowardly, criminal behavior is common in the rodeo mafia.
Of course, none of the rest of the rodeo thugs said anything about Jones' criminal act, so he naturally figured he would take another shot at it, this time with me. The first time Jones blind-sided me he just rode away, but when I asked him if he was man enough to come back, he trotted over. I asked him why he blind-sided me and the sorry sap denied it. I told him that he was pitiful. He didn't appreciate that, but the truth is the truth, and he is unquestionably one pitiful excuse for a man. I went back to my work of videotaping and the thug Jones blind-sided me again, and then issued threats about what would happen to us when the event ended.
After
blindsiding Janet Enoch, Jones blindsided SHARK president Steve Hindi
twice, and unsuccessfully attempted to intimidate Steve into stopping
his filming.
Now it's just plain silly that there are creeps running around in John Wayne Halloween costumes and abusing animals to feel better about themselves. It is just plain ridiculous that a person like John Hooks would hold any law enforcement authority whatsoever. It just plain pitiful that someone like Marty Jones is such a lowlife as to commit criminal acts like assault and battery simply because he doesn't want real people to document what he does. But it is supremely stupid to do all of these things when you have SHARK videocams watching and documenting everything!
Apparently Hooks, Jones and company figure that the law enforcement system in Walker County is so corrupt that they can get away with anything and everything. Maybe it is. We called the police and told them what had happened, but when the show was over and it was time to leave, the cops still hadn't shown up.
We left amidst Jones and his flunkies, who tried to intimidate and bully us up to the end. We simply walked through it all like we were walking through a garbage dump - you try to simply ignore the stench until it is over with.
There will be much more written about this matter. We will take all legal action available to us against those who harassed, threatened us and committed other illegal acts, and we will keep you updated.
One things is perfectly obvious. Although it is extremely early in the rodeo season, rodeo thugs are extremely concerned about their precarious position with both the public and their corporate sponsors.
They should be worried, because SHARK is determined to expose both the rodeo mafia's cruelty and corruption. There is no shortage of guts and spirit by SHARK people. What there is a shortage of is the funds we need to do the job. We need updates to our equipment and we will need money to get to the rodeos nationwide that need to be exposed. We need your help!
Your donation does not go for big salaries. We have only two people who are paid part-time for full-time work, and I am not and have never been one of those people. We pay for no office space - doing all the work from our homes. There are nevertheless expenses when you are chasing and fighting a multi-billion dollar industry like the rodeo mafia.
Our operating funds are dwindling fast, and we cannot and will not dip into our funds for the next Tiger truck, which is still in need of considerably more support. I hope I can count on you to keep us in this fight.
Kindest Regards,
Steve Hindi
-Go to RodeoCruelty.com and TheCruelTruth.com to see SHARK's videos, photos, and learn more about the cruelty and corruption dominating the rodeo industry.
|
Horse Slaughter Halted in Illinois, U.S.
|
|
When a court ruling last week halted inspections at Cavel International, Illinois' horse killing factory, horse slaughter in the United States effectively ended. At least for now. Still pending in
Congress currently are two bills (H.R. 503 and S.
311 (the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act), which if passed will also prohibit the transport of American horses across
the border to Mexico for slaughter. Unfortunately, the horses arriving at Cavel last week for slaughter were turned back to their six orginating states instead of being allowed to be adopted by the horse rescuers who were organized and waiting to receive them.
The Chicago Tribune covered the story and reported comments on the situation from Colleen O'Keefe, Illinois Department of Agriculture's Division manager of Food Safety and Animal Protection, and a familiar name to SHARK supporters who are following the National High School Rodeo Finals abuse case. Ms. O'Keefe's comments highlight the insensitivity of the Illinois Ag Department to the plight of these "food-use" horses, as she defends the decision to send the horses back to ultimate slaughter by saying, among other things, that they are "not Flicka." Read more about the turned away horses here: Chicago Tribune: "Happy Ending Unlikely for Horses that escaped Dekalb slaughter"The Chicago Sun-Times published a pointedly scathing editorial on horse slaughter and the recent decision: It's simple.
March 30, 2007
It's called pet 'em, whack 'em and eat 'em and it's barbaric.
� � Translation: Butchering a pet for human consumption should be a
crime, and it's been going on at the Cavel slaughterhouse in DeKalb,
Ill. It began butchering horses for European dinner tables 20 years ago.
That was until 8 a.m. Thursday, when common sense took over.
That was when the controversial plant was ordered to cease killing
horses for human consumption by a U.S. district court in Washington,
D.C.
� � Translation: The grisly slaughter of 4,000 pets, race horses,
colts, wild horses each month for human consumption in Belgium, France,
Switzerland and Italy is over for now.
� � Further translation: But the plant, the only one of its kind now
operating in the United States, plans to appeal. (Two plants in Texas
were shut down earlier this year by a Texas court.)
"It is a barbaric practice, and the shutting down of the Cavel plant is
a tremendous victory for humane advocates across the country," said Jonathan Lovvorn, chief litigating officer for the U.S. Humane Society.
"It is now up to the U.S. Congress to pass final legislation to end this practice for good."
"Approximately 100,000 horses last year have gone to slaughter under an
illegal scheme of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It's an enormous
breach of our trust to send companion animals to slaughter."
� � The Cavel side: "I think it's a terrible decision," said James Tucker, Cavel's general manager. "I think it's a vast disservice to the horse industry and most horse owners.
"Without this option it means that some people won't be able to dispose
of their animals as they see fit -- a small group of people has
contrived to shut down an industry."
Tucker claims the plant will process the meat "we have from horses that were processed before today."
His concern: "Fifty-five people could be out of work if our appeal doesn't work."
Hmmm. Fifty-five people who listen to the sounds of frightened animals
sliding in their blood. Fifty-five people who watch the agony of man's
companion animals being slaughtered to put on a European table.
� � Background: Congress took away federal funds going to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture to inspect the plants because they didn't
want horses going to slaughter for human consumption. "The USDA tried
to work around that by issuing a rule allowing the plants to pay for
USDA inspection," said Lovvorn. "What just happened is the U.S.
district court said nope. It is illegal for them to pay the USDA
inspectors ... and the plant can't operate without USDA inspection."
Great job.
Bravo.
� � Addendum: By the way, here is a list of gutless state reps who were
responsible for tanking the state's Horse Slaughter Ban bill in 2004.
If they reside in your district, you might want to send them a message
next time you enter the voting booth: Patricia
Bailey, Patricia Bellock, Mike Boland, John Bradley, Dan Brady, Daniel
Burke, Lee Daniels, Jack McGuire, Charles Morrow, Ed Sullivan Jr. and Arthur Turner voted "No" -- and James Brosnahan, Marlow Colvin, John Fritchey, Paul Froehlich and Calvin Giles were either excused or didn't vote. ###
For more on the court decision and the closing of Cavel, read this article from the Chicago Tribune, March 30, 2007: "Slaughter of Horses blocked for now" |
|
SHARK Investigators Document Abuse, Harrassment in Huntsville TX
|
|
Last Tuesday, March 27, 2007 a SHARK team of three investigators (Janet Enoch, Stephanie Wood and myself) attended a steer busting event at the Walker County fair and rodeo grounds near Huntsville, Texas. As is the case with most steer busting, there were virtually no people present besides the
contestants and a very small number of their friends and family members. The event began at three o'clock in the afternoon, when most people are at work, and was unpublicized. The fact is that the rodeo people really don't want the public to show up for steer busting because it is so brutal to the animal victims. Even most rodeo supporters have little time for this disgusting event.
The trauma inflicted on the animals, especially in these steer busting photos from the Huntsville rodeo, is evident.
Every steer had their tails twisted painfully to "motivate" them to run from the chute. Many who didn't display enough response to the painful twisting, or who tried to avoid the abuse of roping by going down in the chutes had their tails raked over rails. The use of electric prods was routine to move and further "motivate."
A considerable amount of rain fell during the previous night, so the dirt was still somewhat wet, and this left long drag marks attesting to more of the suffering endured by the steers.
A lot of the steers took some time to regain their senses after they were untied. This is understandable for an animal who, after running in fear from torment in a chute and a man on horseback, is violently jerked head over hooves by an unseen rope, slammed to the ground, and dragged through the dirt face first.
Numerous animals limped out of the arena. No one outside of the rodeo mafia will ever know how many victims went away with internal injuries sustained from the audible slamming of their bodies onto the arena floor. That's the way it is with steer roping / steer tripping / steer busting. It's the most cruel event in rodeo, conducted by the lowest of the low in the rodeo mafia for virtually no one but themselves.
See video and learn more about the shame that is steer busting here.
Stephanie Wood was the first investigator to attract the attention of rodeo thugs. In response, an individual from the company producing the rodeo and an overstuffed goon who incredibly passes for law enforcement in Walker County went up to confront her. Constable John Hooks was out of uniform and off duty, but that didn't stop him from abusing his authority by falsely claiming that Stephanie had no right to film the event. Stephanie responded with an assurance that she had every right to film. This of course did not go over well with the constable.
photo left: It
is a mighty scary thing to imagine, but the blue-shirted oaf hulking
over SHARK investigator Stephanie Wood is what passes for law
enforcement in Walker County, Texas! Constable John Hooks attempted to
use his position to abuse Stephanie as she quietly filmed. She was
breaking no laws whatsoever -- no SHARK investigator was -- but that
didn't stop Hooks from threatening, harassing and intimidating
Stephanie, and grievously abusing his authority. The John
Wayne-wannabe rodeo thug standing to the right of Hooks identified
himself as Mark Owens.
Off duty, out-of-uniform Constable Hooks made every effort to throw his considerable bulk around, but interestingly he didn't want to actually give up his name or badge number until Stephanie had made numerous requests. He was more than willing, however, to bully and intimidate Stephanie, including threatening her with jail, as rodeo thugs gathered around to watch the show. It was one lone woman against the rodeo mafia, and Stephanie was winning.
Things became even more lopsided when Janet headed over to give Stephanie some support. Janet called the police, and before long was told what we already knew - that we had every right to be there, and to film. This of course did not sit well with the rodeo thugs. The constable lumbered away for a while, apparently to lick the wounds to his ego. For a while he went and sat over by his rodeo buddies, dispelling any question about his loyalties. He even waved tauntingly at us while he literally sat at the feet of his rodeo mafia bosses, looking like an oversized lapdog, and demonstrating just how easily some members of Texas' law enforcement system can be influenced.
A little later Hooks returned with a new mission - to sit near Stephanie and harass her some more with a display of just how big a moron he is. When Stephanie continued to do her job, Hooks brought in more obnoxious rodeo thugs, but nothing worked. Stephanie continued her work.
After failing to stop Stephanie's legal videotaping, Hooks enlisted the aid of a couple ladies (using a very
loose interpretation of "ladies") to further harass Stephanie. Their
secret weapon was apparently to make rude and obnoxious remarks and
take pictures. Real braniacs, these characters. Their lowlife tactics
failed to stop Stephanie from doing her job.
After
finally shaking Hooks and his ensemble of idiots, Stephanie is harassed
by two more rodeo thugs. These animal abusers sure get shook up by
videocams!
With Stephanie demonstrating that she simply couldn't be swayed from her mission, the rodeo thugs turned their attention to Janet and me. The thugs were getting mighty uptight about having SHARK at their animal abuse party, especially when some of the animals were crippled by the abuse. Among this group of characters was an especially dubious individual named Marty Jones, a steer roper. Jones started riding by Janet and I in our respective filming positions while giving us the evil eye. This of course had no effect on us whatsoever. Next Jones came by and made some utterly stupid comments, which again had no effect.
With only a short time remaining before the end of the spectacle, Jones could contain himself no longer. Jones rode up next to Janet as she focused on filming a steer coming out of a chute. Without warning, Jones committed battery by putting his hat over her camera, hitting the camera and her in the face. Then Jones rode away on his horse, while Janet demonstrated her strength of character by never missing a beat with her filming.
Desperation
of the rodeo mafia reaching a fever pitch, steer abuser Marty Jones
prepares to blindside Janet Enoch in a clearly premeditated criminal
act. Nevertheless, his repulsive cowardice did not stop Janet from
doing her work.
As anyone who has ever looked at our CowboyCriminals.com web site knows, this kind of cowardly, criminal behavior is common in the rodeo mafia.
Of course, none of the rest of the rodeo thugs said anything about Jones' criminal act, so he naturally figured he would take another shot at it, this time with me. The first time Jones blind-sided me he just rode away, but when I asked him if he was man enough to come back, he trotted over. I asked him why he blind-sided me and the sorry sap denied it. I told him that he was pitiful. He didn't appreciate that, but the truth is the truth, and he is unquestionably one pitiful excuse for a man. I went back to my work of videotaping and the thug Jones blind-sided me again, and then issued threats about what would happen to us when the event ended.
After
blindsiding Janet Enoch, Jones blindsided SHARK president Steve Hindi
twice, and unsuccessfully attempted to intimidate Steve into stopping
his filming.
Now it's just plain silly that there are creeps running around in John Wayne Halloween costumes and abusing animals to feel better about themselves. It is just plain ridiculous that a person like John Hooks would hold any law enforcement authority whatsoever. It just plain pitiful that someone like Marty Jones is such a lowlife as to commit criminal acts like assault and battery simply because he doesn't want real people to document what he does. But it is supremely stupid to do all of these things when you have SHARK videocams watching and documenting everything!
Apparently Hooks, Jones and company figure that the law enforcement system in Walker County is so corrupt that they can get away with anything and everything. Maybe it is. We called the police and told them what had happened, but when the show was over and it was time to leave, the cops still hadn't shown up.
We left amidst Jones and his flunkies, who tried to intimidate and bully us up to the end. We simply walked through it all like we were walking through a garbage dump - you try to simply ignore the stench until it is over with.
There will be much more written about this matter. We will take all legal action available to us against those who harassed, threatened us and committed other illegal acts, and we will keep you updated.
One things is perfectly obvious. Although it is extremely early in the rodeo season, rodeo thugs are extremely concerned about their precarious position with both the public and their corporate sponsors.
They should be worried, because SHARK is determined to expose both the rodeo mafia's cruelty and corruption. There is no shortage of guts and spirit by SHARK people. What there is a shortage of is the funds we need to do the job. We need updates to our equipment and we will need money to get to the rodeos nationwide that need to be exposed. We need your help!
Your donation does not go for big salaries. We have only two people who are paid part-time for full-time work, and I am not and have never been one of those people. We pay for no office space - doing all the work from our homes. There are nevertheless expenses when you are chasing and fighting a multi-billion dollar industry like the rodeo mafia.
Our operating funds are dwindling fast, and we cannot and will not dip into our funds for the next Tiger truck, which is still in need of considerably more support. I hope I can count on you to keep us in this fight.
Kindest Regards,
Steve Hindi
-Go to RodeoCruelty.com and TheCruelTruth.com to see SHARK's videos, photos, and learn more about the cruelty and corruption dominating the rodeo industry.
|
|
|
