(Beth Clifton collage)
Most partied. Showing Animals Respect & Kindness worked.
CHICAGO, Illinois––Cockfights and charreadas featuring cola, in which mounted charros yank running steers down by their tails, on May 5, 2024 marked Cinco de Mayo holiday celebrations from coast to coast across the United States.
Humane investigators and law enforcement might have had a field day, had they paid any attention to the cockfights, illegal in every U.S. state, and the frequent violations of humane laws that are part of every cola, including the hair, hide, and flesh being stripped from steers’ tails and broken legs resulting from the same steers being flipped bodily a dozen to two dozen times more per afternoon than is allowed in American-style rodeo.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Vegan fiestas
Dozens of humane societies did recognize Cinco de Mayo in various other ways.
Several organizations held vegan fiestas.
The Erath County Humane Society in Stephenville, Texas, held a “Dog Jog 5K & Fun Run.”
The Humane Society of New York held a Chihuahua adoption promotion.
The Fort Defiance Humane Society in Defiance, Ohio, pushed a pit bull.
Paul Watson, founder of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, celebrated adding a second ship to his fleet by posting several Cinco de Mayo cartoons and puns.
Watson is still regrouping after the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which he founded in 1977, obliged him to walk the plank following a mid-2022 hostile takeover.
(See PIRATES! Captain Paul Watson goes down with the sinking Sea Shepherds.)
(Beth Clifton collage)
What is Cinco de Mayo?
Publicity for many of the humane society Cinco de Mayo events––and for many other Cinco de Mayo events––misidentified it as a celebration of Mexican independence. It is not. It is not even a major Mexican holiday.
Cinco de Mayo, historically speaking, celebrates the May 5, 1861 military victory of the Mexican army over French forces at the Battle of Puebla, the lone Mexican triumph in a war that Mexico quickly lost.
Celebrated in California since 1862, and gradually adopted as a mostly unofficial holiday in other states, Cinco de Mayo is essentially just a pretext for a party.
Cinco de Mayo is not a big event in Mexico because the war it was part of ended with France installing the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria as the Emperor Maximilian I.
Maximilian I ruled only for five years before the French emperor Napoleon III withdrew the French troops whose presence ensured his rule. Maximilian I was then dethroned and executed.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Unpaid overtime
One humane organization, Showing Animals Respect & Kindness [SHARK], of Geneva, Illinois, did a bit more for Cinco de Mayo than nibbling taco chips, sipping cervesa, and watching dogs run.
For SHARK, campaigning against cockfighting since 2005 and as a priority issue since 2019, and against charreada animal abuse since 2007, as a priority issue since 2022, Cinco de Mayo annually means a lot of unpaid overtime.
Showing Animals Respect & Kindness founder Steve Hindi has in fact never been paid in 32 years of leading the organization, often financing investigations out of his own pocket.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Monitored steer-tailing
So what did SHARK do for Cinco de Mayo this year?
“Lots,” Hindi responded.
SHARK drone teams monitored a steer-tailing competition in Ogle County, Illinois, on May 4, 2024, and then a full charreada in Will County on May 5, 2024.
The Will County charreada manager “said they only ran steers three times,” Hindi told ANIMALS 24-7.
Hindi observed that the Will County charreada did have more steers on the premises than he has seen elsewhere at charreadas, but said he would have to closely review hours of video before he could say for sure that each steer was run just three times.
“The manager said electric prods were only used in emergencies,” Hindi recounted. “But prods were used to load steers back on the truck afterward. That didn’t look like an emergency to me.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Stopped charreada in McHenry County
The manager also “said he had a vet on call,” Hindi relayed. But the SHARK term documented that instead of being examined by a veterinarian on site, “Three injured steers were left there for quite a long time and then trucked to another charreada,” Hindi said.
A third Chicago-area Cinco de Mayo charreada featuring steer-tailing was advertised, to have been held in McHenry County, but Showing Animals Respect & Kindness learned several days in advance that the charreada promoters “didn’t have a permit,” Hindi said.
“We expected them to run anyhow,” Hindi told ANIMALS 24-7, but after Showing Animals Respect & Kindness kept after McHenry County officials about the regulatory issues, Hindi continued, the McHenry County charreada was not held.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Cockfight busted
While monitoring the charreadas, Hindi said, SHARK also received and relayed to Kentucky State Trooper Post 15 a tip about a cockfight in progress in Casey County, Kentucky “that apparently resulted in some arrests.”
Showing Animals Respect & Kindness previously enjoyed success in stopping cockfights in Casey County by relaying tips on April 8, 2023 and July 16, 2023.
Updated Audrey Fowler of LEX 18 in Bethelridge, Kentucky, on May 6, 2024, “Fourteen people were charged with cruelty to animals for their alleged involvement in an organized chicken fighting event in Casey County.”
Kentucky State Police “found a caged arena with seating for spectators, multiple injured chickens, and a concessions area,” Fowler reported.
None of the 14 suspects had Hispanic surnames. Cinco de Mayo for them was just a pretext for a cockfighting derby, nothing more.
Excerpt from Rancho Los Zacatecanos promotional video shows a charro degloving a steer.
Raising the roof
Showing Animals Respect & Kindness also enjoyed success of sorts after discovering and reporting to Boone County, Illinois senior building inspector Drew Bliss on April 25, 2024 that the roofs over charreada arenas at 289 Irene Road, in Irene, Illinois, and 4830 Pearl Street in Belvidere, the county seat, were apparently built without permits.
The 289 Irene Road arena, Rancho Los Zacatecanos, owned by one Gracie Robles, has been site of the most frequent and most unrestrained violence to animals documented by the SHARK drone team in nearly three years of observation.
Having been built without permits, the arena roofs also may not meet fire safety code.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Fire hazard?
An April 28, 2024 fire started by a power line short circuit spread to the roof of a similar structure at the St. Joseph County Fairgrounds in Sturgis, Michigan, doing $2.8 million in damage.
The 42-by-230-foot fairgrounds barn had been used to store 26 boats.
Bliss on May 6, 2024 confirmed to Hindi by email that, “There is no permit for the structure you identified at 289 Irene Road. I conducted a site visit to confirm and have sent a violation letter. I will look into 4830 Pearl Street Road as well.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Meek & Reed = timid & wind instrument
Hindi has experienced only frustration, however, in trying to call to account Amy Meek and Alexandra Reed of the Civil Rights Bureau within the Office of the Illinois Attorney General, for their role in defeating a proposed Boone County ordinance which would have prohibited steer-tailing.
The Office of the Illinois Attorney General, currently headed by Kwame Raoul, is the agency supposed to enforce, among other duties, the Illinois Humane Care for Animals Act.
The Illinois Humane Care for Animals Act plainly states, as the very first precept of the law, that “No person or owner may beat, cruelly treat, torment, starve, overwork or otherwise abuse any animal.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Reluctant to enforce the law
The Office of the Illinois Attorney General has historically been reluctant to enforce the law against any profitable activity conducted as entertainment.
Nothing in the Illinois Humane Care for Animals Act, however, exempts either American-style rodeo, as Hindi has for more than 30 years repeatedly pointed out with posted videos of rodeo cruelty and public demonstrations, or charreada.
Meek and Reed on November 30, 2023 wrote to Boone County Board chair Rodney Riley and Boone County state’s attorney Tricia Smith that, “The Office of the Illinois Attorney General has received a complaint alleging that the Board is considering permanent restrictions on ‘Mexican-style’ rodeos, also known as charreadas, which would disproportionately affect Hispanic residents and property owners in Boone County, while exempting ‘American-style’ rodeos associated with non-Hispanic residents and property owners.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
What Meek & Reed did not know––or bother to investigate
From their first sentence, Meek and Reed made clear that they had not investigated what they were talking about.
Steer-tailing, the subject of the proposed Boone County ordinance, is only one of the nine standard events in charreada.
Horse-tripping, involved in three of the other standard charreada events, is already illegal in the entire state of Illinois, and many other states.
Neither steer-tailing nor horse-tripping have any parallel in American-style rodeo.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Five charreada events unaffected
Three other charreada events, bull riding, bareback bronc riding, and team roping, are essentially the same as in American-style rodeo.
Two other charreada events are different, but are not apparent violations of the Illinois Humane Care for Animals Act.
Nothing in the proposed Boone County ordinance would have prevented Boone County charreada promoters from holding charreadas featuring the five standard charreada events other than horse-tripping and steer-tailing.
(See So is cruelty to animals more a part of Hispanic heritage than Catholicism?)
(Beth Clifton collage)
Meek played stupid
Hindi on May 2, 2024 emailed to Meek and Reed, seeking “a meeting with you regarding your protection of animal cruelty, which is occurring under the guise of cultural tradition in Boone County, Illinois,” at which meeting Hindi would “show you our video evidence.”
Apparently pretending to misunderstand, Meek responded later that day, “Thank you for contacting the Civil Rights Bureau. Per my last email to you on December 13, 2023 (attached for your reference), the Civil Rights Bureau does not handle complaints under the Humane Care for Animals Act.
The Boone County events flout the rules of the Mexican Federation of Charreria.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“False claim of discrimination”
Asked Hindi, with a follow-up letter to Kwame Raoul, “Is it the Illinois Attorney General’s position that a minority group cannot commit animal abuse?
“I am not asking that the Attorney General prosecute animal abuse. I want the Attorney General’s Office to stop protecting animal abusers who are hiding behind a false claim of discrimination. You have empowered this false claim.
“Illegal abuse is what you are defending. Horses being beaten, steers being shocked, overused, injured and denied veterinary care, and more
Beth & Merritt Clifton
“You have threatened to take action against the Boone County Board for taking action against this illegal abuse. This is unacceptable. Your letter to the Boone County Board should be withdrawn immediately. Another steer tailing season has begun, and those involved have already proven that they will not stop their illegal abuse.”
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The post How cockfighters, charros, & animal advocates celebrated Cinco de Mayo appeared first on Animals 24-7.