# Slaughter promoter Sue Wallis caught in controversy and rumors



## JumpingPaints (Mar 11, 2012)

Press Release from the *Equine Welfare Alliance*
*Wyoming’s State Rep. Sue Wallis Caught in Tornado of Controversy and Rumor*

Mountain Grove, MO (*EWA*) – A bizarre chain of events has followed the contentious meeting of the Mountain Grove City Council on March 6th concerning the Unified Equine proposal to build a horse slaughter plant near the town.


Unified Equine CEO *Sue Wallis* claimed that the project would be a 50% partnership with Belgian company Chevideco, and that they would invest $6 to $7 million in a plant that would be designed by Dr. Temple Grandin.
But during the meeting city residents became inflamed by a presentation given by attorney Cynthia MacPherson, cataloging the pollution and crime that Chevideco’s Dallas Crown facility had brought to the town of Kaufman Texas.


When banker Roger Lindsey rose to defend the project he was shouted down and left the meeting. The unanticipated public anger touched off a series of events. First, the director of the Mountain Grove YMCA announced that he would no longer permit Sue Wallis to hold a planned meeting there on the following Monday.


On her facebook page, Wallis explained this apparent snub by saying “We have not spoken to him directly, but it is my understanding that the YMCA director received death threats to his family, and to sponsors of his organization, We have heard directly from other community members that they have received threatening letters just for publicly expressing their support for the project.”


EWA contacted the Missouri State Police, the Mountain Grove police department and the YMCA director, Chad Watson. State police captain Duane Isringhausen, told EWA’s John Holland that he had received no such reports. The Mountain Grove police said they had heard the report and investigated but that they could find no evidence of threats being made to anyone. YMCA director Chad Watson said he had received no threats and had moved the meeting when he learned of its subject. “This place is for the children”, said Watson.


Wallis announced that the meeting had been moved to the Wright County Livestock Auction, and that while the public was welcome, anyone being “disrespectful” would be evicted. On March 10th the auction owner, Nathan Kelly, said the meeting would be closed to the press. Kelly said he had been “lambasted” by people opposed to the project.


MacPherson told EWA that she is encouraging people to stay away from the Wallis meeting; however postings on the popular Topix blog show some residents plan a peaceful protest outside the auction.


The media ban was not the end of this bizarre episode. In subsequent interviews, Wallis was quoted contradicting her earlier claims of backing from Chevideco saying that she did not have an agreement, and that she would likely depend on local investors. This revelation follows the earlier statement by Grandin that she knew nothing of the project.


EWA’s *John Holland* summed up the situation saying “It now appears that Wallis, rather than bringing millions of investment dollars into the area, intends instead to borrow millions from the people of Missouri to have someone who had not been told of the project build them a horse slaughter plant that they don’t want! What could go wrong with that?


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Sorry to break it to you, but I'd believe a press release from an organization like this about as much as I would one from PETA...


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## JumpingPaints (Mar 11, 2012)

bsms said:


> Sorry to break it to you, but I'd believe a press release from an organization like this about as much as I would one from PETA...


So you have a problem with facts then? That's what this release is reporting.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Other links:

Horse slaughter plant meeting closed to media | Springfield News-Leader | News-Leader.com

Mountain Grove YMCA won't allow public meeting on horse slaughter plant at its facility | Springfield News-Leader | News-Leader.com


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

JumpingPaints said:


> So you have a problem with facts then? That's what this release is reporting.


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop it! You're killing me faster than Unified Equine can drop a horse!


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## Faceman (Nov 29, 2007)

JumpingPaints said:


> So you have a problem with facts then? That's what this release is reporting.


Facts? I certianly have no problem with facts. But as a former Public Information Officer for over 15 years with the federal government who has issued literally thousands of press releases, I can honestly tell you that very few press releases issued by governmental units or private organizations with or without political agendas are "factual', and it is naive to think they are. Heck, even supposed neutral articles (not press releases) appearing in the media are rarely factual due to the ignorance or incompetence of the journalists authoring the articles...


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## kevinshorses (Aug 15, 2009)

The OP read more like an editorial than a press release.


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## ShutUpJoe (Nov 10, 2009)

I'm assuming then... all you lovely HF members can point out the facts for us? Since we know not what we speak.


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## Faceman (Nov 29, 2007)

ShutUpJoe said:


> I'm assuming then... all you lovely HF members can point out the facts for us? Since we know not what we speak.


OK, here's a fact. The decision whether or not to permit the construction of a plant to slaughter horses or to modify an existing plant in the Mountain Grove area is a local decision that should be made by local residents. EWA, the issuer of the press release, has nothing to do with the Mountain Grove community, nor does it have an interest in the community. It is a private organization, based out of Illinios, with a political agenda, and has entered a local debate in which they are not a shareholder.

Here is another fact...if a person reading that "press release" cannot determine that EWA has an established political agenda, and cannot identify the bias statements made in the release, that person needs to dust off their **** and Jane readers.

Perhaps you or others don't mind outsiders with political agendas dictating to your local community what you should or should not do, however I and many people resent outsiders, be they EWA, PETA, or the Bunnylickers of America, sticking their noses where they don't belong...


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## mildot (Oct 18, 2011)

JumpingPaints said:


> So you have a problem with facts then? That's what this release is reporting.


Hardly unbiased when it comes from an anti-slaughter organization.

Some of us were not born just yesterday.


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## yourcolorfuladdiction (Feb 19, 2012)

Faceman said:


> Perhaps you or others don't mind outsiders with political agendas dictating to your local community what you should or should not do, however I and many people resent outsiders, be they EWA, PETA, or the Bunnylickers of America, sticking their noses where they don't belong...


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: Bunnylickers of America :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

you know, they put up such a big stink about a horse slaughter plant, but having more of them might actually create better regulations to prevent non-'raised for slaughter' horses from being purchased off of race tracks and from auctions from becoming horse meat. And creating stricter rules on how they're allowed to be slaughtered and processed.

I don't see any Cattle Welfare of America groups protesting every time they want to put up another beef slaughter house. Or a Swine Welfare of America group protesting the bacon on your table. If they really want to get something done right they should be protesting the FDA for not keeping up with what is going on well enough. Other than that they need to go back to eating their wheat grass and leaving everyone else alone.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

_"MOUNTAIN GROVE, Mo. -- The photo on the big TV screen of scrapped horse organs and heads piled in the dirt spurred gasps from the overflow crowd crammed into this town’s senior center._

_ But attorney Cynthia MacPherson, leading the charge against a horse slaughter plant here, was just getting started._

_ “People there had horse blood coming up into their toilets!” she stormed at the meeting last week..._

_ ...There was yelling and finger-pointing, a rant about immigrants and a tussle at the door._

_ “We can’t let people steamroll in here and do this!” MacPherson, a former prosecutor, bellowed. “Does Mountain Grove want to be known as the horse slaughter capital of the world?”_

_ “No!” the packed house roared._

_ With the crowd fired up, it was the other side’s turn. But neither company pushing the project had anyone there."_​Later:
_"But she kept going._

_ Most employees at the slaughter plant would likely be undocumented Hispanic immigrants, she told the group._

_ “That’s nothing against Hispanics because they are good, hard workers,” she said._

_ She then talked about how crime would probably skyrocket. Residents would no longer be able to walk their neighborhoods at night. Sexual assaults could increase."_​Mountain Grove, Mo., protests the idea of horse slaughter plant - KansasCity.com

The article above is actually pretty good for a press report. It give a whole different picture than the "press release", doesn't it? 

Horse blood squirting out of toilets? YGBSM! And them darn Hispanics, comin' in and rapin' & killin' and stealin'...

"I tell you, we've got trouble. Right here in Mt Grove. It starts with an "H" and ends in a rape..."

Guess that is what passes for political discourse anymore. :evil: :evil:


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## mildot (Oct 18, 2011)

bsms, that's a good find. Exposes the true agenda.

Horse blood coming out of the toilets? That's rich.


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## kevinshorses (Aug 15, 2009)

If horse blood is coming out of the toilets they have plumbing problems NOT slaughter problems. I worked at a beef slaughter plant in a small community and it helped the town far more than it hurt it. Were there hispanics that moved into the town to work at the plant? Certainly, but they were good hard-working people. The plant used every single bit of the animal. They surely didn't throw any parts away.


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## JumpingPaints (Mar 11, 2012)

Faceman said:


> Facts? I certianly have no problem with facts. But as a former Public Information Officer for over 15 years with the federal government who has issued literally thousands of press releases, I can honestly tell you that very few press releases issued by governmental units or private organizations with or without political agendas are "factual', and it is naive to think they are. Heck, even supposed neutral articles (not press releases) appearing in the media are rarely factual due to the ignorance or incompetence of the journalists authoring the articles...


Oh, my bad - I forgot horse eaters wouldn't know a fact if they fell over one.

So as a 20-year PR veteran, I'll point those pesky things out for those unsure of the definition.....

On her facebook page, Wallis explained this apparent snub by saying “We have not spoken to him directly, but it is my understanding that the YMCA director received death threats to his family, and to sponsors of his organization, We have heard directly from other community members that they have received threatening letters just for publicly expressing their support for the project.”

EWA contacted the Missouri State Police, the Mountain Grove police department and the YMCA director, Chad Watson. State police captain Duane Isringhausen, told EWA’s John Holland that he had received no such reports. The Mountain Grove police said they had heard the report and investigated but that they could find no evidence of threats being made to anyone. YMCA director Chad Watson said he had received no threats and had moved the meeting when he learned of its subject. “This place is for the children”, said Watson.


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## JumpingPaints (Mar 11, 2012)

mildot said:


> Hardly unbiased when it comes from an anti-slaughter organization.
> 
> Some of us were not born just yesterday.


Many people who were 'not born just yesterday' have lived a lifetime of denial.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

JumpingPaints said:


> Many people who were 'not born just yesterday' have lived a lifetime of denial.


Others spend a lifetime slinging bull.

Here is another hint for you, even if you ARE "a 20-year PR veteran" and I'm just a retired military officer:

Calling folks "horse eaters" is about as impressive a PR effort as suggesting that a meat packing place will cause horse blood to turn your toilet red, or that 'hard working' Mexicans will come and "Residents would no longer be able to walk their neighborhoods at night. Sexual assaults could increase."

What's next...will horses' heads show up in our beds, a la The Godfather?


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## John Holland (Mar 12, 2012)

Faceman said:


> Facts? I certianly have no problem with facts. But as a former Public Information Officer for over 15 years with the federal government who has issued literally thousands of press releases, I can honestly tell you that very few press releases issued by governmental units or private organizations with or without political agendas are "factual', and it is naive to think they are. Heck, even supposed neutral articles (not press releases) appearing in the media are rarely factual due to the ignorance or incompetence of the journalists authoring the articles...


Hello Faceman,

Are you saying that you lied for the government for 15 years and so nobody should trust EWA? I happen to agree with you that the government, and even the mainstream media publish lies every day, but that is the very reason we exist.

Take this situation. The local media printed every work Sue Wallis said as if it were true. Now it turns out almost none of it was! The local paper was the worst of all, making it sound like great news.

Well, you said we have nothing to do with Mountain Grove. The fact is that the folks there did not believe the paper and did not want a slaughter house. They contacted us and asked us if we had anything to help them fight it.

Well, it turns out the former mayor of Kaufman Texas who fought against Dallas Crown for years is a very good friend of mine. She gave them reams of data about that place, and we gave them data on other locations.

Every single thing we presented was accompanied by a documented source.

Someone here said the blood in the toilets was "rich". Maybe so, but it happened. Dallas Crown was having trouble clogging up their drains, so they put a pump on them to force it down. It pushed the clog down the main line until it hit the branch to other houses. The blood and waste then took the easier route up into the houses.

So I see all these comments based entirely on conjecture about the messengers in all this and nobody actually checking facts. That is what we do and we welcome your checking what we say. 

The horse slaughter business is little better than organized crime. It runs rough shod over communities, abets horse theft and has no respect for anyone or anything. Some here may wish it were otherwise, but that is the way it is and we have spent a decade documenting it.

By the way, the EWA is all volunteer. None of us is paid and we have represent over 200 member organizations, mostly rescues. You accused us of promoting our own "agenda". In deed we do, and our agenda is that we love equines and hate liars.


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## JumpingPaints (Mar 11, 2012)

bsms said:


> Others spend a lifetime slinging bull.
> 
> Here is another hint for you, even if you ARE "a 20-year PR veteran" and I'm just a retired military officer:
> 
> ...


Are you or are you not supporting the eating of horses?

PR Note: Your picture only serves to exacerbate your lack of understanding of the seriousness of this situation and the undue suffering this industry causes our equine partners.


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## JumpingPaints (Mar 11, 2012)

mildot said:


> bsms, that's a good find. Exposes the true agenda.
> 
> Horse blood coming out of the toilets? That's rich.


And true. Unless of course the testimony of the residents and sanitation department of Kaufman, Texas doesn't fit your pro-slaughter narrative.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

_"Dallas Crown was having trouble clogging up their drains, so they put a pump on them to force it down. It pushed the clog down the main line until it hit the branch to other houses. The blood and waste then took the easier route up into the houses."_​What kind of sewer system is that? Water lines don't work like that. The waste water would have to develop an overpressure that would allow water to flow backwards into nearby homes. I've known that to happen with a septic system, but the plumbing is different in that case.

I have never, ever seen a case of waste water from an industrial site being pressured into residential waste lines and forcing something up into the toilets.

Further, a letter from the former mayor posted on an anti-slaughter site failed to mention this 'concern':

Mayor Letter

It is entirely reasonable to insist on regulation of a meat-packing place - or a car wash, or a vegetable packing place, or ANY industrial site. It is entirely reasonable to insist normal laws of zoning and construction are followed. 

The same is true of ANY meat-packing place. But there is nothing special about a HORSE-meat packing place. Horses do not have a special blood, or special organs, or smell worse than cows or chickens.

The truth is that the anti-horse slaughter people are arguing against 'the Black Stallion' being killed, not an animal that weighs 800+ pounds. They know they cannot win arguing that cows cannot be killed and eaten, so they focus on 'pets' - ignoring the fact that most horses in America are NOT pets.

And no, I do not believe for a moment that blood was turning up in toilets. Not unless the city was incredibly negligent in the design of their sewers, or their zoning!

More here:

http://www.kaufmanzoning.net/DMN03132005.htm from *The Dallas Morning News*


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

JumpingPaints said:


> Are you or are you not supporting the eating of horses?...


More to the point of your accusation, do I or do I not eat horse meat? And the answer, apart from saying it is not your business, is that I tell my horses I do...it keeps them moral...

Why don't you call me a cow-eater instead, or an 'eater-of-pig-flesh'? Oh wait...we can slaughter those animals without offending as many feelings.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Another good article here:

Horse Flesh - Page 1 - News - Houston - Houston Press


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## robohog (Nov 24, 2011)

I really dont know why this type of argument keeps rearing its head on this forum. No one is gonna change anyone elses opinion


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## furbabymum (Dec 28, 2011)

Shoot I've eaten horse. I didn't like the taste really. It was in Japan though. If the world fell apart I'd eat my own horses without a second thought. Much as I love them. I'd eat my dogs as well and I treat them like babies. 

I'm not well informed on horse slaughter. I can't argue that. To make it evil though. I just don't buy that. So long as an animal is humanely killed and not hurting the eco system with it's loss I don't really care what kind of animal people are eating.


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

@ Faceman. hahahaah - bunny lickers of america. OMG. THat was funny. You owe me a new keyboard. I spit Coke all over mine reading that.


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## Faceman (Nov 29, 2007)

John Holland said:


> Hello Faceman,
> 
> Are you saying that you lied for the government for 15 years and so nobody should trust EWA? I happen to agree with you that the government, and even the mainstream media publish lies every day, but that is the very reason we exist.
> 
> ...


Hi, and welcome...

I'm not sure I would call it "lieing", although some might. And no need to twist my words, thank you. I don't believe I said EWA was lieing. What I did say was press releases are biased, and I should know. Just an example, and remember I worked for the Small Business Administration: under Clinton, I had to parrot administration policies, one of which was that raising the minimum wage was GOOD for small businesses for a variety of reasons, among which was a rise in income meant more revenues for small businesses. Fast forward to the Bush administration, and I had to as usual parrot administration policy, although this time of course raising the minimum wage was BAD for small businesses as it increased overhead, and reduced profit which suppressed expansion and hiring new employees. Neither was a "lie" as such, but simply reflected two opposing views of the same issue. It is obvious from EWA's release, that it is seeking to further its agenda and any information communicated is biased and certainly not objective. That is not a criticism, it is a simple statement of fact. If your press releases were objective, you would not be fullfilling the mission of your organization.

As to the Mountain View issue, I don't see anything in what you have said that justifies interference. Neither you nor your organization are stakeholders there, as I previoiusly mentioned. Horse slaughter is, as many issues are, an emotional rather than logical issue. The presence of outside organizations does nothing more than inflame emotional issues. The people in Mountain Grove and Cabool are perfectly capable of making up their own mind without outside interference. It is their decision - not yours, your organization's, or mine. Although I live not far from there, and have done a lot of economic development in the Mountain Grove area, I am still not a member of that community, and can only act as a resource - not an adviser.

What is ironic to me, is although MacPherson and her husband are Republicans, the district is Republican, and the whole of Southwest Missouri is strongly conservative and Republican, the people, or at least those that have made their voices heard, are clearly against the project.., although I suspect that as usual, the "agins" are more vocal than the "fers". Your involvement was not needed (not that it would be under any circumstances), and was merely inflammatory.

The fact that (and I am taking your word it is fact) your organization consists solely of volunteers is irrelevant. The opinions of your organization are what they are whether anyone is getting paid or not.

I don't have anything against your organization's agenda, although I disagree with it. Everyone has causes they support. You may not agree with my causes and I may not agree with yours, but we both have the right to support our own interests. What I have against your organization is the method in which you implement your mission - community interference using fear and inflammatory tactics. And your agenda is NOT that you "love equines and hate liars" (your words). I daresay everyone on this board, whether for or against horse slaughter for human consumption, loves equines, and loving equines is not an "agenda", nor is calling anyone that disagrees with you a liar. I would suggest you would better serve your agenda by putting forth an image that presents the issues rather than condemning those that disagree. I am not particularly familiar with your organization, this is honestly the first time I have crossed paths with it, however if it is a radical as PETA and similar orgainzations, which is apparent in your press release and your insistance on calling people you disagree with liars, then you will have the same credibility issue as they, and your hard work will be for naught...although you will no doubt take credit for "successes" like Mountain Grove, that were predestined to failure with or without your involvement...


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

Frankly, before any town in Missouri (where I do live) agrees to a slaughterhouse, they should visit a town with a slaughterhouse. I drove from Joplin to Albuquerque last October and there, along I-40 west of Amerillo is a slaughterhouse. We could smell it in the car 2 miles prior and 3 miles past it. It was the most God foresaken smell I have ever experienced. 

I don't care if it is a cow, pig, horse, or chicken processing plant. They are nasty to the neighboring environment.


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

The entire point of a press release is to release your *point of view *on a particular topic. I write Press Releases. What I write is not a lie. It is also not the whole story either.

Press releases identifying new joint ventures, new products, new locations never talk about any of the negatives of the new joint venture (monopoly), product (animal testing) or location (traffic impacts).

Even newspapers are skewed. In my hometown there are two papers. One is "right" and one is "left."

If you want the truth, you read them both and rewrite the article yourself. 

The truth is always somewhere between both sides of a single argument. 

And, if you believe differently, then I have a bridge to sell you in New York.


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## furbabymum (Dec 28, 2011)

Greeley, CO has cow slaughter and feed lots. The whole area smells terrible. The natives say they get used to it though. Being in Cheyenne, WY we have enough wind to blow all the nasty smells we may have to Nebraska. 
They may not smell well but they have to be put somewhere. I need a hamburger!


AQHSam said:


> Frankly, before any town in Missouri (where I do live) agrees to a slaughterhouse, they should visit a town with a slaughterhouse. I drove from Joplin to Albuquerque last October and there, along I-40 west of Amerillo is a slaughterhouse. We could smell it in the car 2 miles prior and 3 miles past it. It was the most God foresaken smell I have ever experienced.
> 
> I don't care if it is a cow, pig, horse, or chicken processing plant. They are nasty to the neighboring environment.


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

I agree Furbabymum. The benefits of employment does out weigh the negtives. But, OMGoodness. It was a stench like none other I have smelled. And I have a teenage BOY in the house! LOL.

We have a processing plant near here I think. Every once in a while on the south side of Joplin I get a whiff of something.


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## Faceman (Nov 29, 2007)

AQHSam said:


> I agree Furbabymum. The benefits of employment does out weigh the negtives. But, OMGoodness. It was a stench like none other I have smelled. And I have a teenage BOY in the house! LOL.
> 
> We have a processing plant near here I think. Every once in a while on the south side of Joplin I get a whiff of something.


There used to be a rendering plant on the southside of Joplin when I was a kid in the 50's - probably long gone by now. We lived outside Neosho for a while and they would come down and pick up the carcasses...


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## kevinshorses (Aug 15, 2009)

AQHSam said:


> Frankly, before any town in Missouri (where I do live) agrees to a slaughterhouse, they should visit a town with a slaughterhouse. I drove from Joplin to Albuquerque last October and there, along I-40 west of Amerillo is a slaughterhouse. We could smell it in the car 2 miles prior and 3 miles past it. It was the most God foresaken smell I have ever experienced.
> 
> I don't care if it is a cow, pig, horse, or chicken processing plant. They are nasty to the neighboring environment.


They are NOT nasty to the enviroment if the city planners use thier heads. The plants that I have worked in have had air scrubbers on all the exhaust fans and sufficent flow to maintain negative air pressure inside the building. The water is ran through the companies water treatment facility before it goes down the drain into the city sewer system. In one case the plant had it's own treatment plant and treated the water to the point of it being considered potable before being pumped into the enviroment competely bypassing the city system but providing a lot of irrigation water to surrounding nieghbors.

You are a lot more likely to smell a feedlot or dairy than you are a slaughterhouse. You would be shocked if you knew where they were. I've been to Greeley Colorado and the smell is certainly coming from the feedlots and if I had to guess the feedlots have been there a lot longer than the people complaining about the smell.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

I used to live in Portales, NM. Driving from Cannon AFB to my house in Portales, I had to pass a couple of dairies. With the wind, there was sometimes a green/brown cloud to drive thru.

Don't know if a slaughterhouse is worse or not. Maybe it is.

But I am certain that if the local government pays attention to the permit process, the sewer will not be overloaded. If it costs $6 million to process, then that should be easy to figure out in advance - it isn't as though no slaughterhouse has ever existed. Tell the company to pay up front or build elsewhere. Let THEM bear the costs of any additional treatment, and let THEM decide if they can still make a profit doing so. I have no desire to subsidize them, but neither do I want an undue burden placed on a business.

For purposes of smell and waste treatment, there is no difference between slaughtering horses, cows or pigs. I consider hamburger, bacon and pepperoni to be essential food groups, so I have no right to complain about horses being eaten.


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## John Holland (Mar 12, 2012)

*Crime in Kaufman*

BSMS, here is the crime rate in Kaufman before and after the closing.
You can find the data yourself and verify it. Again, this isn't what some of you want the truth to be, but it is the truth and pictures of horse heads will not change it.

We averaged the values from 2000-2006 and those from 2008-2010 (last year available).

· *Murders dropped from an average of .5/100,000 to 0.*
· *Rapes dropped from an average of 6/100,000 to 0.*
· *Robberies dropped 65%*
· *Assaults dropped 61.2%*
· *Thefts dropped 71.2%*
· *Auto thefts dropped 83.3%*

Every category dropped dramatically except arson, and this happened as the economy was tanking and you would have expected the opposite. No, there was no change in policing efforts or anything else to explain it except the plant closing.


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## John Holland (Mar 12, 2012)

I will just say this about pollution. There are big differences between horses and other animals. For one thing horses have 1.75 times as much blood per pound as cows.

But more importantly, there are absolutely no controls on the drugs horses get before being slaughtered. Now, the treatment process uses "bug tanks" which are basically like septic tanks in that they use friendly bacteria to break down the waste. So, if there are antibiotics in the blood or tissue guess what happens to the bug tank?


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## kait18 (Oct 11, 2011)

this may be naive but but i dont see how can you blame a slaughtering plant for criminals??

in my mind that is stupid. people are the criminals that cause the crimes not the business. if you want less crime then to me that means you need a better police force in the area/ better screening for people in the area who get hired to work... if you dont want screening and/or police then expect crime...just makes sense to me


but then if you relate that to the world of business the city has crime higher than those stats but we aren't blaming any of the businesses there for the crime... and if we are they aren't being shut down... so why should here be any different??

just need clarity as to what the difference here is...


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## Faceman (Nov 29, 2007)

John Holland said:


> BSMS, here is the crime rate in Kaufman before and after the closing.
> You can find the data yourself and verify it. Again, this isn't what some of you want the truth to be, but it is the truth and pictures of horse heads will not change it.
> 
> We averaged the values from 2000-2006 and those from 2008-2010 (last year available).
> ...


First, your crime statistics are absolutely meaningless, and second, your intimation that crime would be expected to increase during the recession is of course incorrect. Third, you have supplied no evidence, nor is there any, that the decrease in crime is attributable to the plant closing.

For those that want to know the facts, the crime increase in Kaufman decreased 58.5% from 2006 to 2010. During that same time frame, the crime index in Dallas (Kaufman is a bedroom community of Dallas) decreased 35.6%. While the drop in crime in Kaufman was certainly more than in Dallas, it is consistent with an overall drop in crime in the greater Dallas area in that time frame. It should also be noted that because Kaufman has so few crimes in relation to Dallas, even a few less crimes have a greater impact on the index than in Dallas.

This is a prime example of making a biased presentation by only presenting part of the evidence, making incorrect attributions, and offering no defensible conclusions.

To be redundant, one must always look deeper for the real facts when reviewing any communication from an organization with a political agenda. That is true with any organization - not just EWA. One can paint virtually any picture by limiting the universe of the statistics being used for their own purposes...


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## kevinshorses (Aug 15, 2009)

So the trend continued downward even when the plant closed. Do you think that all the hispanics will leave if you don't slaughter horses there? Who do you think washes sheets in the hotels and cooks the food and landscapes the yards. there are hispanics in every city in america. At least when they work at a plant they have to be legal. They DO have to be legal because the employer verifies it with the federal government. 

The plants DO NOT use bacteria alone to break down the water from the drains. Blood is actually dried and used for fertilizer. The fat is skimmed of the top of the water using a machine called a rotosieve and rendered into oil to be used for things like bio-diesel. The bones are ground and dried and the oil is used for cosmetics among other things. The bones are used for a variety of things including fertilizer. The stomach contents are dried and sold as an ingredient in commercial compost. The hides are quite valuable and they are usually soaked in brine and shipped to a tannery.

You are at best poorly informed about modern meat processing plants and at worst intentionally misinforming people. Only you know which.


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## John Holland (Mar 12, 2012)

BTW, in my comment about liars I was not referring to anyone on this board (despite my observation about Face Man's comment). What I hate is when people put out press releases with plain lies in them like Sue Wallis does. She claimed Grandin was on board and she wasn't. She claimed she was partnering with Chevideco and she wasn't. She claimed she had 100% support and she didn't. She claimed there were death threats and there weren't. Those were the easy lies to catch. The hard ones are the promises that the plant would be different from all that have come before!

Sure, everyone puts out releases that further their agenda. But there is a line that one should not cross.

And it cannot be called interfering if someone asks for your help to save their community, and nothing in our release claimed any credit for events that happened. We only mentioned our investigation into the death threat claims.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Hmmm...Kaufman, TX has a population under 7,000. It makes statistics that are based on "per 100,000" a bit suspect. Between 2000 and 2010, there were 3 murders in Kaufman: 2 in 2002, 1 in 2006. That does NOT make for statistical significance for something that happened in 2007.

In 2001 and 2004, there were no rapes in Kaufman. In 2003 there were 5, and in 2006 there were 6. You cannot pull a trend off of that, other than overall there has been some decline - not surprising, since crime is down dramatically overall.

Rates of rape and murder have been declining significantly for years.

"In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States. Small towns, especially, are seeing far fewer murders: In cities with populations under 10,000, the number plunged by more than 25 percent last year...

...Nationally, murder fell 4.4 percent last year. Forcible rape — which excludes statutory rape and other sex offenses — fell 4.2 percent. Aggravated assault fell 3.6 percent. Property crimes — including burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson — fell 2.8 percent, after a 4.6 percent drop the year before."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/us/24crime.html

*It seems horse slaughterhouses have been shutting down all over America for the last 30 years! Amazing!*

"According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, the adjusted per-capita victimization rate of rape has declined from about 2.4 per 1000 people (age 12 and above) in 1980 (that is, 2.4 persons from each 1000 people 12 and older were raped during that year) to about 0.4 per 1000 people, a decline of about 85%. There are several possible explanations for this, including stricter laws, education on security for women, and a correlation with the rise in Internet pornography."

Rape in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Meanwhile, aggravated assault is UP in Kaufman. What does that mean?

Kaufman, Texas (TX 75142) profile: population, maps, real estate, averages, homes, statistics, relocation, travel, jobs, hospitals, schools, crime, moving, houses, news, sex offenders

Well, this all means that there may be more going on in crime rates than just a slaughterhouse. In Tucson, rapes have dropped by over 50% since 2005, and by 45% since 2007 - but there are no horse slaughterhouses in Tucson. Not in 2005, or 2007, or 2010. Murder rates have remained level, but aggravated assault are down about 25% - again, no one has shut down a slaughterhouse in Tucson.

Tucson, Arizona (AZ) profile: population, maps, real estate, averages, homes, statistics, relocation, travel, jobs, hospitals, schools, crime, moving, houses, news, sex offenders

*IOW - your statistics for a town of 6500 at a time of generally falling crime rates don't prove squat.They are just scare tactics, based largely on fear of Hispanics.
*


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## Faceman (Nov 29, 2007)

kait18 said:


> this may be naive but but i dont see how can you blame a slaughtering plant for criminals??


If you have followed the whole thread as well as the press release, the subtle intimation is actually not so subtle. Tie the inofrmation presented together...The premise is that such a plant is staffed largely by undocumented workers who display a higher incidence of crime. Now the plant in Kaufman, as nearly as I can determine employed a whopping 200 people, and obviously many, if not most, of them were not undocumented workers. Under EWA's assumption, the handful of undocumented workers (if any), must have worked all day and stayed up all night committing crimes...don't know when the poor rascals got any sleep.

For the record, I am as opposed to illegal immigration as anyone - probably more than most. However I don't believe that those who cross the border illegally and get regular jobs are any more predisposed to conventional crime than those who cross legally and get regular jobs. Drug dealers that cross the border illegally are a different matter, of course, but they would be highly unlikely to be working at a slaughter house.

This is, at least in my opinion, prejudice and discrimination in its worst form hiding under the guise of an organization with tax free status. Think about it...


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## kevinshorses (Aug 15, 2009)

I'm sure this looks great as a power point presentation and really gets people pumped up but it has little substance in the light of the facts.


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## onetoomany (Dec 10, 2008)

John Holland- psssst. Correlation does NOT equal causation. Just a little secret for ya. 

Also- most large changes in society cannot be attributed to one single, relatively minor event. They can usually be traced to institutional changes occurring on several different levels. In this case the institutional changes were probably made with the specific goal of lowering crime rates. PLUS businesses closing generally does not result in a decrease in crime as it results in unemployment. "Ordinary life for most people is regulated by the rules of work and the rewards of work which pattern each day and week and season. Once cast out of that routine, people are cast out of the regulatory framework that it imposes. Work and the rewards of work underpin the stability of other social insitutions as well." (_Poor People's Movements_, Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward) So it does not stand to reason that crime rates would drop as unemployment rises, although I would not be so presumptious or near-sighted to say that unemployment will result in higher crime rates because broad, sweeping statement are (almost) always wrong. Get my drift?


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## John Holland (Mar 12, 2012)

Faceman said:


> This is, at least in my opinion, prejudice and discrimination in its worst form hiding under the guise of an organization with tax free status. Think about it...


Oh, now we pull the prejudice card do we? You might want to search the literature concerning slaughter (any slaughter) and crime. The relationship is well documented. 

It is interesting that you couldn't find drops in all categories of crime that were this dramatic even fishing around the country! But I will go back to that graph and add the trend lines for other towns in the area.

Fitzgerald and Dietz took the standard studies further. They compared other blue collar employers like manufacturers to slaughter houses. They determined that the crime rates actually went down when these opened in a town. 

It is true that these plants hire almost exclusively emigrants, but that does not appear to be the problem. The problem is the kind of person who seeks these jobs. There are lots of businesses who use illegal immigrants that do not appear to cause an increase in crime.

Here is what Fitzgerald and Dietz found:

*In conclusion, despite some limitations, our research makes valuable theoretical and** empirical contributions to a developing sociology of the slaughterhouse. This study is the* *first to test the theories proposed to explain increased crime in slaughterhouse communities,16 providing evidence that elaborates on the case study research that initially documented increased crime in communities where large slaughterhouses were sited. The inclusion of comparison industries as well as standard predictors of crime rates in our analyses supports the claim that slaughterhouses have a unique and insidious effect on the surrounding communities. Although studies have found that employment in the manufacturing sector in **general has suppressant effects on crime (e.g., Lee & Ousey, 2001), this is clearly not the case for the slaughterhouse subsector of manufacturing. Meaningful theoretical and empirical distinctions can and ought to be drawn between slaughterhouse employment and other types of manufacturing employment. In particular, our results lend support to the argument, first articulated by Sinclair, and since elaborated by Beirne, that the industrial slaughterhouse is different in its effects from other industrial facilities. We believe that this is another of a growing list of social problems and phenomena that are undertheorized unless explicit attention is paid to the social role of nonhuman animals.*


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## John Holland (Mar 12, 2012)

Sorry folks, but I have to move on. I know that some people will never change their minds, but at least I got you looking at facts! And yes, continue to be skeptical, but challenge your own assumptions too and don't hide behind cheap shots like calling someone prejudice. That shows you have given up on winning with facts and reason.


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## Faceman (Nov 29, 2007)

John Holland said:


> Oh, now we pull the prejudice card do we? You might want to search the literature concerning slaughter (any slaughter) and crime. The relationship is well documented.
> 
> It is interesting that you couldn't find drops in all categories of crime that were this dramatic even fishing around the country! But I will go back to that graph and add the trend lines for other towns in the area.
> 
> ...


Haha...Why not show all of Amy Fitzgerald's publications? I especially liked this one...


> Fitzgerald, Amy, ‘Bitches’, ‘Bunnies’, and ‘Biddies’: How Animal Metaphors Degrade, Sexualize, and Denigrate Women,
> Allyn and Bacon, 2005, Social Problems, edited by D. Stanley Eitzen and Maxine Baca Zinn, 10th ed..


Love your expert references...:rofl:


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

_"This means that controlling for all of the variables in the model, when the number of slaughterhouse workers increases by 1 the arrest scale increases by .013 arrests. This may not seem like much, but it is the risk posed by a single slaughterhouse employee. The average slaughterhouse employs approximately 175 people. The addition of an average sized slaughterhouse to a county would therefore be expected to increase the arrest rate scale by 2.28 arrests per year."_​SPILL-OVER FROM ‘THE JUNGLE’ INTO THE LARGER COMMUNITY: SLAUGHTERHOUSES AND INCREASED CRIME RATES by Amy J. Fitzgerald​ 
http://thedogdidit.net/docs/2312_week3_reading1.pdf

Notice that was for slaughterhouses in general, and it did not attempt to look at HORSE slaughterhouses vs cattle or pig.

In any case, I suspect an increase of 2 arrests/year is not significant to most counties. And I doubt many of us meat-eaters are willing to go vegetarian to reduce crime by 2 arrests/year/county. 

"It is interesting that you couldn't find drops in all categories of crime that were this dramatic even fishing around the country!"

But I did - rapes and murders have dropped dramatically everywhere in the country. In Tucson, rapes dropped 45% from 2007 to 2010! Amazing - a horse slaughterhouse closes near Dallas, and the drop in rapes is felt as far as Tucson!


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## Faceman (Nov 29, 2007)

John Holland said:


> Sorry folks, but I have to move on. I know that some people will never change their minds, but at least I got you looking at facts! And yes, continue to be skeptical, but challenge your own assumptions too and don't hide behind cheap shots like calling someone prejudice. That shows you have given up on winning with facts and reason.


Horse slaughter and its associated issues have been a matter of discussion and debate on horse forums for as long as there have been horse forums. Most longtime forum members are well versed on the subject, and respect the opinions of the "other side", so long as those opinions are presented factually. In reality, both sides agree on certain issues pertaining to slaughter for human consumption, while maintaining disagreement on others. You have accomplished nothing here other than embarrass yourself and your organization - we have been looking at the facts for many years...you certainly have had no impact on that. Many anti-slaughter forum members have presented far better and more factual arguments to support their position than you. 

Good luck, though...your cause is an honorable one, and you deserve kudos for dedicating your time to what you believe in...


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## kevinshorses (Aug 15, 2009)

John Holland said:


> Oh, now we pull the prejudice card do we? You might want to search the literature concerning slaughter (any slaughter) and crime. The relationship is well documented.
> 
> It is interesting that you couldn't find drops in all categories of crime that were this dramatic even fishing around the country! But I will go back to that graph and add the trend lines for other towns in the area.
> 
> ...


As one of those kind of people I'll tell you why I sought a job in the slaughter industry. *I wanted a job with insurance and decent pay so I could raise my young family.* There was nobody at that plant that worked there because they liked to be around dead stinky animals. You are not only a bigot but you are an elitist fool. If you were standing in front of me there is no way you would make the point that the crime rate rises because "those people" come to town to torture cute little animals to death. I hope you are some kind of radical animal rights fanatic because other wise YOU ARE AN IDIOT. Don't forget to cast your vote for President. The election is the first tuesday of December.


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## Faceman (Nov 29, 2007)

kevinshorses said:


> As one of those kind of people I'll tell you why I sought a job in the slaughter industry. *I wanted a job with insurance and decent pay so I could raise my young family.* There was nobody at that plant that worked there because they liked to be around dead stinky animals. You are not only a bigot but you are an elitist fool. If you were standing in front of me there is no way you would make the point that the crime rate rises because "those people" come to town to torture cute little animals to death. I hope you are some kind of radical animal rights fanatic because other wise YOU ARE AN IDIOT. Don't forget to cast your vote for President. The election is the first tuesday of December.


Thanks for the reminder. For those that haven't heard yet, they changed the election this year. The Republicans will be voting in November, and the Democrats in December...be sure to mark your calendar and vote...


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## kitten_Val (Apr 25, 2007)

Faceman said:


> Thanks for the reminder. For those that haven't heard yet, they changed the election this year. The Republicans will be voting in November, and the Democrats in December...be sure to mark your calendar and vote...


:rofl:


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

kevinshorses said:


> They are NOT nasty to the enviroment if the city planners use thier heads. The plants that I have worked in have had air scrubbers on all the exhaust fans and sufficent flow to maintain negative air pressure inside the building. The water is ran through the companies water treatment facility before it goes down the drain into the city sewer system. In one case the plant had it's own treatment plant and treated the water to the point of it being considered potable before being pumped into the enviroment competely bypassing the city system but providing a lot of irrigation water to surrounding nieghbors.
> 
> You are a lot more likely to smell a feedlot or dairy than you are a slaughterhouse. You would be shocked if you knew where they were. I've been to Greeley Colorado and the smell is certainly coming from the feedlots and if I had to guess the feedlots have been there a lot longer than the people complaining about the smell.


You make a great point. It was more likely the lot where the cows were jammed packed standing in manure next to the highway. I was referencing the entire facility not necessarily what happens inside.


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## kevinshorses (Aug 15, 2009)

The holding pens get cleaned every night.


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

John Holland said:


> Sorry folks, but I have to move on. I know that some people will never change their minds, but at least I got you looking at facts! And yes, continue to be skeptical, but challenge your own assumptions too and don't hide behind cheap shots like calling someone prejudice. That shows you have given up on winning with facts and reason.


Bye. Have a nice day. 

Hey, do you even own or ride horses? I couldn't tell since you joined this month and have only posted on this topic.


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

kevinshorses said:


> The holding pens get cleaned every night.


Huh. They must have been stinky cows then. I'm really not against the plants or complaining about them. I'm from Detroit and thought at 46 yrs of age I had experienced every disgusting industrial smell possible. 

I was wrong. .


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## kevinshorses (Aug 15, 2009)

There are some feedlots near the plant if I remember right and they are a different story. There's no way to house 50,000 cattle and not have a smell. the cattle are well taken care of and comfortable.


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## furbabymum (Dec 28, 2011)

Cheyenne, WY has an Air Force Base and now an oil boom. I'd love to have hispanics here rather than what we currently have. Any increase in people increases crime. That's just common sense. I don't think the race of people have anything to do with it.


John Holland said:


> BSMS, here is the crime rate in Kaufman before and after the closing.
> You can find the data yourself and verify it. Again, this isn't what some of you want the truth to be, but it is the truth and pictures of horse heads will not change it.
> 
> We averaged the values from 2000-2006 and those from 2008-2010 (last year available).
> ...


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## AlexS (Aug 9, 2010)

Crime, pollution, smell, an increase in population are arguments used against lots of issues such as new housing developments etc. 

It's pretty weak sauce if that's the bulk of the argument against the plant.


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## John Holland (Mar 12, 2012)

AlexS said:


> Crime, pollution, smell, an increase in population are arguments used against lots of issues such as new housing developments etc.
> 
> It's pretty weak sauce if that's the bulk of the argument against the plant.


Just got a moment to drop in. AlexS, you must have missed my reference to slaughter houses. Study after study has shown they bring more crime. The definitive study done by Fitzgerald and Kalof specifically showed that slaughter houses are unique in increasing crime. Other forms of manufacturing do not have such an impact on crime.

The increased crime is not because they hire Hispanic immigrants, but because of the kind of people attracted to the work. It is not really a point that is arguable, just look at the literature. It does not mean all slaughter house workers are evil people, just that people who like to cause suffering are attracted to the job.

The reason I pointed out that the Chevideco executives admitted they hire almost all immigrants is very simple. They always sell these projects to natives as helping the unemployment situation. If the area does not have a large immigrant population, then the plant will end up hiring outsiders and it will do nothing for the natives.

Anyhow, in response to the criticism about the crime rate in Kaufman, the fact that crime rates dropped in other areas was brought up. It is a good point. So I went back and gathered the data for the five nearest communities that were available. The populations of these were three to ten times larger than Kaufman and the larger ones had a slightly higher average crime rate (expected). Anyhow, here is the new graph.


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## John Holland (Mar 12, 2012)




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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

John Holland said:


> ...The definitive study done by Fitzgerald and Kalof specifically showed that slaughter houses are unique in increasing crime...because of the kind of people attracted to the work. It is not really a point that is arguable, just look at the literature. It does not mean all slaughter house workers are evil people, just that people who like to cause suffering are attracted to the job...
> 
> Anyhow, in response to the criticism about the crime rate in Kaufman, the fact that crime rates dropped in other areas was brought up. It is a good point. So I went back and gathered the data for the five nearest communities that were available. The populations of these were three to ten times larger than Kaufman and the larger ones had a slightly higher average crime rate (expected). Anyhow, here is the new graph.


Yeah, the folks who work in slaughterhouses do it because they are just sadistic people who like to create suffering...< / sarcasm >

The study I found (your author) gave a crime increase of 2 crimes / county / year. No reputable researcher would claim that was statistically meaningful.

Your crime statistics are meaningless. They involve a town of 6500 people over a period of years. That sample size doesn't allow accurate, detailed analysis. The raw numbers just are not there. With 3 murders in a 10 year period, you cannot create a trend line. You simply cannot pull raw data in that small a sample and attribute cause & effect to ANYTHING about it.

For example, how many of those killed or raped were killed or raped by workers at the slaughterhouse? Any? If so, was it disproportionate to the population?

Further, are you opposed to ALL slaughterhouses? Or just horses? If all, then all we would have to do is give up eating meat and using leather. Maybe you & your friends want to do that, in the interest of 'reducing' crime by two arrests a year, a number I doubt anyways, but many of us will pass.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

Also: 

"Mr. Holland is an advocate for horse welfare and humane treatment. He frequently writes on the subject of horse slaughter from his small farm in the mountains of Virginia, where he lives with his wife, Sheilah, and their 12 equines. Holland is co-founder of the Equine Welfare Alliance and serves as senior analyst for Americans Against Horse Slaughter, an organization composed entirely of volunteers."

Founding Members

Just so folks know.


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## John Holland (Mar 12, 2012)

BSMS, you are trying to nitpick to make your points. Sure there were very few murders overall. If the argument was only about murder you would have a point, but the drop was not just murders, or even rapes, but across the board. 

I will agree with one thing. I did not expect such a drastic drop in crime due to the slaughter house closing. My theory is that whatever attracts violent people to slaughter in general is for some reason even stronger with horse slaughter.

If you have read any studies about animal abuse syndrome, you know that they have shown that the pleasure centers of some people's brains light up when they are shown photos of animals being tortured. So it is not much of a stretch to postulate that this effect would be stronger for larger and more sentient creatures.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

I am not nit-picking. You don't have a statistically meaningful sample. You have made no attempt to find out if ANY of the crimes were actually committed by employees of the slaughterhouse. If they were, you would still have the problem of a meaningless sample size.

Further, anyone who does analysis should know the difference between correlation and causation. If I looked, I'd bet I could find a TV show that had a decline in viewership that closely matched the overall crime rate in Kaufman, but that wouldn't mean that viewers of the show committed crimes in Kaufman. Correlation - something happening at the same time - is NOT causation.

With national crimes rates dropping, and with rates dropping faster in smaller towns, and with that trend continuing even last year, you have no basis in reality for saying there is any link whatsoever based on crime data pulled from city-data.com in a town of 6500 people.

What you are doing isn't just oversimplification. If you know anything about crunching numbers, then you should know your use is misleading to the point of outright dishonesty.

_"If you have read any studies about animal abuse syndrome, you know that they have shown that the pleasure centers of some people's brains light up when they are shown photos of animals being tortured. So it is not much of a stretch to postulate that this effect would be stronger for larger and more sentient creatures."_​I'm not convinced horses are more sentient than pigs. However, I find the idea that men get jobs in slaughterhouses so they can revel in animal suffering ludicrous. They get those jobs because they need employment, and they can find some there.

Have you ever branded calves, or dehorned them? That is bloody work too, but I suspect some of the ranchers on the forum would take exception to being told they do that work because they enjoy causing pain. I've helped friends out with branding & castrating...didn't even get paid for it. Yet I don't enjoy animal suffering. I don't do some sort of weird animal suffering porn on my computer at night. I don't pull wings off of flies, or kill puppies. I've never raped or killed anyone.

Have you ever put an animal down? Shot it, or helped the vet kill it? I have. I didn't enjoy it, but I've done it. Sure as heck didn't stimulate any pleasure centers in MY brain...


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## Faceman (Nov 29, 2007)

bsms said:


> However, I find the idea that men get jobs in slaughterhouses so they can revel in animal suffering ludicrous.


I think ludicrous is a very mild term. I find the idea radically wacko.

I've also heard that garbage collectors choose their careers because of all the flies around garbage - they like to pull the wings off.

And professional fisherman get their thrills from impaling helpless worms on hooks and watching them wiggle in agony.

And of course people that work at animal shelters are there so they can get their jollies euthanizing puppies.

In my case I retired from being a public servant and became a banker because I always wanted to know what it was like to repo an old widow's house and throw her out in the cold. Dang, I miss that...:?


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## John Holland (Mar 12, 2012)

gayleoneal said:


> Get real people. Banning the Slaughter Houses has all but ruined the Horse Industry....


When did that happen? Why wasn't I told! 

Is this whole group living in some alternate reality? Slaughter was never banned; removing the inspections funding simply pushed the slaughter over the border to Mexico and Canada. The average number of US horses being slaughtered is actually up some as of last year.

That anyone could believe that the horse industry could slaughter its way to prosperity is absurd. 

If you want to know what _did_ ruin the horse industry, look no further than your friendly federal government. In 2004 they began pushing our alfalfa on China, Japan, S.Korea and other countries. Now a growing percentage is exported while the total crop is declining. This is hurting our dairy industry as well.

Or how about subsidizing corn in ethanol? The costs of these feed staples went up drastically since 2007, while we enjoy high unemployment and foreclosures caused by deregulation of the banks and Wall Street. 

Here are the USDA numbers.


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## bsms (Dec 31, 2010)

So...why are you content to push the slaughter into Mexico? How does THAT help ANY horse?


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## kevinshorses (Aug 15, 2009)

John Holland said:


> I will agree with one thing. I did not expect such a drastic drop in crime due to the slaughter house closing. My theory is that whatever attracts violent people to slaughter in general is for some reason even stronger with horse slaughter.
> 
> If you have read any studies about animal abuse syndrome, you know that they have shown that the pleasure centers of some people's brains light up when they are shown photos of animals being tortured. So it is not much of a stretch to postulate that this effect would be stronger for larger and more sentient creatures.


Are you such a fool that you can't even read your own graph. By the graph you posted, crime was already trending down BEFORE the plant closed. Second, the plant is in Texas near a large city. There are PLENTY of hispanics there already. The 100 that worked at the horse plant probably weren't out of work for more than a week. 

I've worked in many different places and there is no difference between the people that work in the slaughter house and those that make airbags for example. Not one person at that plant that I knew and I worked there for nine years so I knew most of them pretty well, enjoyed thier job because it hurt animals. There were actually only four people in the plant that dealt with the animal while it was being killed. Those four guys were perfectly normal. They did a job that needed doing and they did it as efficently as possible. After the animal was dead and hanging it was no different than any other kind of factory although it was somewhat messier. 

I also challenge your assumption that horses are more sentient than cattle or pigs. They certainly are no more self aware and I know they aren't smarter than pigs and I'm not sure they are smarter than cattle. More trainable, yes but not necessarily smarter.


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