Very early on Thursday morning, May 3, Janet Enoch and I arrived at a classless, dirty combination of a truck stop/restaurant/stockyard in the small and largely boarded up town of Texhoma, Oklahoma to document an event that was part of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association's (PRCA) Guymon Pioneer Days Rodeo.   In the back of the stockyard sits a large dirt arena, and it was there that we intended to videotape two days of steer busting, the most cruel and deadly event in rodeo.  The early morning start time on a weekday in a completely out-of-the-way place is the rodeo mafia's way to keep outsiders from showing up.  Rodeo thugs don't want people with hearts and brains witnessing a stupid and brutal activity that injures and kills so many animals. 

Now, because of SHARK's persistent effort to document the utterly indefensible nature of this abuse, the thugs are increasingly holding steer busting on private property so that outsiders may be excluded.  This Texhoma location is privately owned.

We had been there for just a few minutes when the owner of the property, a most unpleasant individual named Dean Crosby, approached us with a couple additional thugs in tow.  Crosby got right to the point, telling us that we wouldn't be allowed to take either pictures or videotape.  Although he incorrectly guessed the name of the organization, he was well aware of our work as recently as just a few weeks earlier.  "You was at Huntsville, you's everywhere," he exclaimed.  He was correct.  We were at a Huntsville, Texas rodeo recently and we are trying our best to be everywhere, and I'm glad that it seems like we are.

I tried to engage Crosby in some meaningful dialogue, but it was impossible.  Six times over Crosby threatened, "I'll throw you out on the highway!"  This cruel and hateful moron hadn't the first inkling of what compassion, truthfulness or dignity meant, and it was well beyond my abilities to teach him.  He and his fellow thugs tried to play tough, but all they succeeded in doing was to demonstrate yet again that rodeo thugs are cowards that come from the bottom scum of the human gene pool.

It was obvious that Janet and I wouldn't be able to videotape or take pictures, even though others openly did so.  A group of thugs stuck to us like cow manure the whole two hours that we persisted in staying at the event.  When Janet at one point took a cell phone picture of someone else videotaping, it was as if an emergency alarm sounded, and thugs rushed toward us from both inside and outside the arena floor.  Were it not for the cruelty to the steers it would have been comical.

This woman openly videotapes, as did others.  Only SHARK's cameras were banned.

 

We stuck around for two hours of the spectacle, and in that time we saw three steers hobble off with injuries.  This is no surprise given the contorted and brutal way the animals are slammed to the ground, as in the photo above.  At that rate alone, a couple dozen animals would go down in the course of the two-day event.  It is impossible to tell how many additional victims would later succumb to internal injuries.

It is abundantly clear that the rodeo mafia is desperately afraid of the effects of what we are videotaping, and they should be.  We will continue posting videos on the SHARK website as well as putting them up on YouTube, MySpace and other Internet mediums, and we will be identifying the rodeos, the towns they occur in, the stock contractors, and the sponsors of all of them.  That information will do tremendous damage to the images of all involved. 

Furthermore, we have some other plans for these animal abusers that willmake them even crazier, and we will be announcing these plans very soon.  It all adds up to the worst public relations nightmare the rodeo mafia has ever faced, and we will be savoring every single moment of it.

The steer busting event in Texhoma is considered part of the Guymon rodeo in Guymon, Oklahoma, even though the two towns are over twenty miles apart from each other.  Putting plenty of distance between steer busting/roping and the rest of the rodeo is intended to keep outsiders away.  Rodeo thugs don't want people coming to see steer roping because of the number of animals that are maimed and killed.  It is becoming very common for steer busting to be held some distance away from the rest of a rodeo, and it is typically held early on a weekday, again so that there are no outsiders.

Having been shut out of the Texhoma steer busting, we were curious to see if they would do the same thing at the Guymon rodeo.  Interestingly, no one said a thing about us being there, and there were no prohibitions whatsoever on taking still pictures or videotape. 

That was a mistake for the rodeo thugs, because we documented many horses being shocked, and horses, calves and steer having their tails twisted, pulled and raked over fences, and roped calves dragged by their necks-all in violation of the PRCA's supposed "humane rules."  We were pleased to see that no bulls were shocked, and we feel that is a sign that some progress is being made as a result of our work.

This horse is about to be shocked in the head while having his tail pulled in order to make him appear wild and mean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This victim hasn't been shocked yet, but the creep in the blue shirt holding the prod clearly intends to do so, and there is a judge (striped vest) that is looking right at the impending cruel humane violation.  The so-called humane rules of rodeo are a lie.

 

 You can see the striped shirt of a rodeo judge to the left of the shocker.  He watched the electrocution, a violation, and as usual did nothing to stop it.

We also documented one calf having her leg broken during the calf roping event.  A Dodge truck was immediately sent out into the arena, and the rodeo thugs hoisted the mortally injured calf onto the back of the pickup.  They left no doubt about their complete insensitivity to the baby's suffering by using her injured leg as one of the lifting points.  The job was done as quickly as possible, and the clown and announcer made jokes to distract the crowd.

This picture captures the moment that a rodeo thug snapped the right rear leg of a young, innocent calf.

With the broken body in the back of the pickup, the rodeo thugs used their bodies to try to shield the crowd from even seeing their victim.  Not once was a single word spoken about the baby animal that was being sacrificed by the morons in the arena for the mindless amusement of the morons in the stands.  Not a single word.

This was the exact same response SHARK received from Cindy Schonholtz, the PRCA's laughably titled "Animal Welfare Coordinator," when we requested a copy of the animal injuries report from the Guymon Pioneer Days Rodeo.  Not a single word.  Despite all their ridiculous talk about "low injury rates" and "high standards" of animal care, rodeo people never miss the opportunities that SHARK gives them to reveal their true nature: lying cowards.

Mr. La Maestra was an arrogant jerk from moment one, with a cocky attitude that was difficult to figure.  At one point La Maestra stated that he had been on the force for 23 years, and still he is just a bike cop!  He was also profoundly unprofessional, calling SHARK's Janet Enoch  "sweetheart" at one point, and exhibiting not only a profound lack of knowledge about the law, but also a willingness to lie and fabricate things as he went along.  Having videotaped both of his stops of the Tiger, we were truly looking forward to confronting him in court, despite the twelve hundred mile drive and hundreds of dollars in attorney fees and traveling costs.  Unfortunately, it was not to be.

 

Officer La Maestra says, "Hi Sweetheart!" to Janet in a demonstration of how unprofessional (not to mention corrupt) he was during the first of two harassing traffic stops in San Antonio, TX last February.  Where did this guy get his training -- clown school?  Wherever he was trained, integrity and guts apparently weren't part of the cariculum.  While Steve and Janet drove over 1200 miles to face this moron, La Maestra was a no-show.

 

Was it a hint of wisdom or just cowardice that persuaded Officer La Maestra not to show up for our May 8 court date?  I guess we'll never know.  Given the fact that the Tiger has operated many times in Texas over the past six years, during which time we have never received a traffic ticket, I can only guess that AT&T was the motivating factor for Officer La Maestra, given that both his traffic stops occurred right outside AT&T's headquarters.  No other cops bothered us in or around San Antonio, Houston, or Waco, where we spent lots of time during the Baylor Bear campaign.

One thing is for certain - had Officer La Maestra shown up he was in for a very rough ride having to explain his arrogance, incompetence and lies.  As it is, with the case now dismissed, SHARK can focus even more on our efforts against animal suffering.

We are happy to announce that after a brief delay caused by the high school rodeo association's stonewalling tactics, Choice Hotels has been pulled from the web site of the National High School Rodeo Association (NHSRA).  Choice was the most prestigious company sponsoring the NHSRA, which teaches young people to brutalize animals, break its own rules and even state laws, and to lie about all of it. 

Choice's sponsorship was scheduled to run until 2009, but the early termination was a result of discussions with SHARK and a review of our video documentation from the NHSRA Finals.  SHARK investigated the 2006 NHSRA Finals and documented cruel brutality and rules being violated, including the uses of electric shock and spiking animals with sharp objects to make them "perform.  To learn more about the cruelty and corruption surrounding this rodeo association, and to see SHARK's photos and videos, go to IllinoisCorruption.com.

Now, Choice Hotels has officially dropped the rodeo like yesterday's garbage.  Too bad we can't say as much for the other ethically challenged Corporate Thugs still cozied up with the rodeo industry.   (Disclaimer -- SHARK intends no disrespect to yesterday's garbage, but rather to the rodeo thugs.)  Thank you to the many supporters who wrote to Choice's Vice President of Corporate Communications, Anne Madison (Anne_Madison@choicehotels.com), to voice their appreciation for her company's compassionate decision.

Now we are ecstatic to announce that the rodeo planned for Denmark has been cancelled.  This is another blow to the rodeo mafia, which is under growing pressure from within the borders of the US, and is having great difficulty moving out to new areas.