Showing Animals Respect & Kindness drone video persuades Illinois state’s attorneys & county court judge
JOLIET, Illinois––A terse handwritten note from Will County, Illinois county court judge John Anderson on September 8, 2023 handed Showing Animals Respect & Kindness a first big win––at least on paper––in a year-long campaign against charreada cruelty in the greater Chicago area.
Yet to be seen is whether the Will County charreada sponsor, the Horseman Association Club of the North of Joliet, Illinois, will honor Anderson’s order, and whether the Will County authorities will respond to violations.
Charreada sponsors lost motion to dismiss
The September 8, 2023 petitioners, acting upon drone video collected by Showing Animals Respect & Kindness, were Will County State’s Attorney James W. Glasgow and Assistant State’s Attorney Tom M. Renken.
The Horseman Association Club of the North of Joliet, Illinois, also identified as La Herradura De Joliet, was the respondent.
Wrote Judge Anderson, “Respondent’s motion to dismiss [Glasgow and Renkin’s application for a temporary restraining order against charreada abuses] is withdrawn.
“Respondent agrees to refrain from all animal abuse, including horse-tripping and degloving.
“The parties agree to no drones flying over the rodeo property.
“The respondent will have a licensed veterinarian on site starting September 17, 2023.
Matter set for status [conference on] November 1, 2023.”
(SHARK photo)
Charreada sponsors got a weekend to implement
Judge Anderson’s order allowed the Horseman Association Club of the North of Joliet, Illinois a weekend grace period, September 10-11, 2023, to instruct charreada participants, called charros, about any necessary changes in rules and procedures.
Showing Animals Respect & Kindness [SHARK] was elsewhere, monitoring another charreada in the Chicagoland outer suburbs, over the weekend of September 10-11, but SHARK founder Steve Hindi pledged that the SHARK team, including drones, would be back in Will County on September 17, 2023, and frequently thereafter.
Hindi was unperturbed that the Horseman Association Club of the North of Joliet asked for “no drones flying over the rodeo property,” because as he pointed out to ANIMALS 24-7, the SHARK drone cameras pick up their best angles on charreada action from several hundred feet beyond the rodeo premises.
(SHARK photos; Beth Clifton collage)
“Strong principled law enforcement”
“Finally, a strong, principled law enforcement official is stepping forward to bring relief to the nonhuman victims of rodeo in Will County, Illinois,” exulted Hindi.
“La Herradura De Joliet has to refrain from all animal abuse, including horse tripping, which we have witnessed at this location, and degloving,” Hindi emphasized.
Degloving, meaning ripping the skin of the tails off of steers when charros grab the steers’ tails to throw them down, is practically inevitable when cola, or steer-tailing, is practiced in the traditional charreada manner.
“This is a huge win that will vastly increase the pressure on neighboring counties to also do the right thing!” Hindi said.
Boone County does nothing
“By comparison, we have been working in Boone County, Illinois for nearly two years with almost nothing to show for our efforts. Will County is making a stand, and will be on the right side of history,” Hindi assessed. “State’s Attorney Glasgow’s bold move will have significant ripple effects not only in Illinois, but literally across the country.
“Meanwhile,” Hindi promised, “SHARK is still working hard to gather evidence against these cruel and illegal events. Not only are we NOT done with these animal abusers, we’re just getting warmed up!”
Horse-tripping, already illegal in Illinois, and steer-tailing, are “part of a Mexican-style rodeo act [charreada] which is popular not just in Illinois but around the country,” explained Lourdes Duarte and Andrew Schroedter for WGN-TV.
“They’re well-attended with musical acts, food, and alcohol being a big part of the experience,” Duarte and Schroedter said.
“They can operate, if they follow animal welfare rules”
“The Horseman Association Club of the North of Joliet rodeo venue known as La Herradura attracts thousands of people each year,” Duarte and Schroedter continued.
“They can operate, as long as the owners follow animal welfare rules.”
But that was not done when the SHARK drone team videotaped several Will County charreadas, including near Joliet, the county seat.
Hindi pointed in particular to alleged neglect of a steer with a badly broken leg. The injury itself was documented by SHARK drone video. Then the injured steer was prodded into a pen with other steers, jostled by the others for hours while the charreada continued, and finally was left behind when the other steers used that day were trucked back to the stock supplier in Iowa.
(SHARK photos; Beth Clifton collage)
“Tail-stripping, tripping horses, prodding faces”
“The steer should have been secluded, if a vet was not on site,” Hindi said. “A vet should have been called immediately and the steer should have been put down. That did not happen. It certainly did not happen in the nearly three hours that we were there.”
Recounted Duarte and Schroedter, “Glasgow described what he saw in the video that led him to file the [application for the temporary restraining] order.”
Said Glasgow, “They were doing tail-stripping [degloving], tripping horses, and using the electric prod, not on their posteriors but on their heads,” all contrary to the Illinois Humane Care of Animals Act, which––as it stands in present form––Glasgow himself wrote.
“La Herradura is a money-making operation, and will be shut down unless they obey these rules,” Glasgow promised.
A Showing Animals Respect & Kindness lawsuit against Boone County for non-enforcement of the Illinois Humane Care of Animals Act remains pending.
(See HFA & SHARK lawsuit hits Boone County, Illinois, for permitting steer-tailing.)
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Great news. How ignorant I was years ago when I met Steve who was driving a van though the streets with a big screen TV mounted on each side showing animal cruelty videos, that he would be using emerging technology to prosecute animal abuse. Thank you Steve. I am going to your website and donating this afternoon. Wake up PETA and HSUS. I wouldn’t give your measly efforts a dime.
Thank you, Richard, for your support and kind words. For the movement generally, SHARK is ready to advise, and if need be train those who would like to incorporate drones in their frontline efforts.
There are a few groups whom we will not work with (they know who they are), because we consider them to be little more than fundraising machines, but for those wishing to make a real commitment to taking on animal abusers, drones have helped us immensely.
Rodeos, pigeon shoots, cockfighting, Enviro beagles, cow nose rays, cormorant slaughters and more have benefited from our drone efforts. The biggest whine the rodeo thugs’ lawyer had at the court hearing mentioned in this article was about our drones, and for good reason. They can’t hide from, or argue with our documentation.
Want to elevate your group’s frontline effort? Take to the skies – literally!
The act of ripping tails off living beings reminds me of the “cultural tradition” of foxhunting in the UK, whereby the tail of the fox is taken as a “trophy.”
I would like to think the human race evolves; but in 2023 AD, I’m certainly not convinced.
Sharing with gratitude…
Agreed. Except I believe the other animals perform better at evolving unstinted by the barricades of “tradition,” “culture,” and economics that hinder human improvement.
Again thank you to Steve Hindi for being the lone voice for the protection of animals in these gruesome and illegal events. The cruelty is beyond words; the sheer sadism is unthinkable.
None of the animal welfare organizations that take in tens of millions of dollars each year have stepped up to the plate to stop this despite having millions of dollars available to pursue legal action and publicize the suffering.
Steve alone has brought the drones, involved law enforcement, taken the perpetrators to court and risked injury and jail himself to do so. This turn of events is well earned by Steve.
Thank you for your kind words, Ruth, as you are a hero to us at SHARK.
I will mention, and we are most fortunate to have as a partner in this effort, the Humane Farming Association, who is paying for the legal effort against Boone County, Illinois. They have also in the past helped with our effort against cockfighting.
The partnering of like-minded organizations is crucial to magnify results for animals. Partnerships can be difficult sometimes, because groups operate differently, but with real effort, it is possible and can be extraordinarily productive.
On behalf of SHARK, I want to dedicate this victory, and the many others to follow in the case of these horrific events, to the memory of Bob Barker and his still-living friend and companion in animal protection, Nancy Burnet.
It was Bob and Nancy who gave SHARK the opportunity to put cameras in the air, and we’ve worked hard to improve our “Angels” project even since. We were also able to get a boat (The Bob and Nancy) to deal with those slaughtering cow nose rays in cowardly bowhunting tournaments, as well as the despicable slaughter of cormorants by the government on the West Coast. We were able to buy a large vehicle (dubbed the Barkermobile) to carry and tow our gear to challenge animal abusers on the land, on the water and in the air across the nation.
We heard about Bob’s passing as we were flying at a rodeo, and the past few weeks have been so busy, there wasn’t a moment to salute his passing until now. I hope Bob would have wanted us to keep doing what we were doing for our animal friends, but I felt bad nonetheless.
Bob is dearly missed, and the world is a poorer place without him. What we can all do is step up our efforts to fill the considerable void left by his passing. That is how we at SHARK will remember, and continue to salute Bob Barker.
Of all the atrocities perpetrated on these sentient beings, the worst is probably “degloving” – stripping the skin off the tail. How this could be even permitted in a so-called first world country is beyond my understanding.
My deep respect to Mr. Steve Hindi for his unrelenting work against such people and I am truly surprised that the big players who are raising such enormous amounts are not taking any action. But, then again, maybe after paying the CEO’s and other staff salaries, they do not have much left for helping animals.
This excerpt from a 1990 treasured letter from Cesar Chavez (United Farm Workers) to ACTION FOR ANIMALS bears repeating:
“Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cock fighting, bullfighting and RODEOS [emphasis added] are cut from the same fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves.” Indeed. Words to live by.
Relatedly, see prize-winning documentary, “BUCKING TRADITION” – http://www.buckingtradition.com (also available on YouTube).
x
Eric Mills, coordinator
ACTION FOR ANIMALS
Oakland
email – afa@mcn.org