Chino Packing House Caught Taking Downers To Slaughter
Westland Meat Company/Hallmark Meat Packing own and operate a slaughterhouse in Chino, CA that they say has operated “under the strictest possible standards for animal welfare, occupational health and safety and food safety precautions for 10 years.”
Today, however, that Chino slaughterhouse is shut down because the Humane Society of the United States went public with a powerful video tape that shows downed animals being brutally forced through the packing house.
“The video appears to show employees jabbing downed cows in the eyes, using repeated electric shocks, dragging them with forklifts and tormenting them with water in efforts to move them into the slaughter chutes,” reports the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.
“Downer Cows,” meaning animals that are not able to rise off the ground on their own, cannot be slaughtered for human use out of control for controlling diseases like Mad Cow.
One thing is certain; the video was powerful enough to rattle the United States Department of Agriculture. USDA was not only one of Westland’s regulators; it was one of its biggest customers. The government agency bought 27 million pounds of beef from Westland last year for the school lunch program.
Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer promised an investigation by USDA’s various arms.
"We are confident in our inspection system and the food safety regulations that ensure the safety and wholesomeness of the food supply. Among the federal safeguards in place, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) prohibits non-ambulatory disabled cattle and cattle tissue identified as specified risk materials for use in human food,” Schafer said a prepared statement.
Someone from the Humane Society took the video while working undercover inside the packing plant last fall. Two employees identified in the video by the company were immediately fired.
I am so sick and disgusted by the footage I just saw on the news. What kind of people do this to living creatures. I will NEVER buy beef from a grocery store or restaurant again. I will tell everyone I know what happens to these animals before this meat arrives at the grocery store. It is one of the most appalling inhumane things I have ever seen. DO NOT buy meat from Westland or Hallmark meat packers or from any meat packers as I'm sure all slaughter houses are guilty of the same.
I hope that the humane society and other animal rights groups like PETA continue to do these undercover investigations to let the public know the TRUTH about the meat industry. They are all the same and do not care about the animals only the profit! All of their morals are flushed down the toilet just to make a buck! It is filthy and we need to move past this prehistoric/barbaric era and realize that animals were not put on this earth for us to exploit them. They feel pain just like we do and deserve the right to live just like we do!
Brilliant Tamara!
Let's see.....will you ever eat again? Everything we eat to sustain life is/was a living organism. Is shredding lettuce inhumane as well? Maybe not because lettuce isn't a mammal! I truly believe you need to get all the facts on beef processing facilities before you make such a narrow-minded statement. Fact is, the US beef supply is the safest in the world. Employees at these facilities need to be held accountable for their actions similarly to Mike Vick.
Just sickening how Westland was named USDA "supplier of the year" for 2004-2005 and has delivered beef to schools in 36 states but treat these animals with appalling cruelty and and vicious abuse. I understand that they treated their staff cruelly as well. Perhaps the Gov't should go undercover at all abattoirs to find the real truth of what is really going on. I no longer eat meat!
I have lived in a farming community in the Midwest all my life. I am appalled after viewing the news clips of the Westland Meat Company/Hallmark Meat Packing abuse of sick cattle.
This company should be fined so seriously that it sends a message to all others that Americans will not tolerate such inhuman treatment of animals.
I would like to dance about twenty minutes in the feed lot with Steve Mendell and each of those abusive employees to see how they like it…. I'll bring my cattle prod...
same on you people I hope you lose everything!!! your house your families!!! I would like to see someone do to you what you did to the cows..
those bullets were wasted on those poor innocent kids at the univeristy the should of been used on you!!!! There is no justice
The ex boyfriend of someone I know in Michigan just died of Mad Cow Disease in Michigan. I wonder if these cases are being hidden from the public to protect the beef industry?
The footage that I just saw on my local news station made me physically ill. I can not believe how people could torture those poor helpless animals. I am very thankful that the Humane Society has brought this companies actions to view and that this company will be shut down forever. NO living creature should be treated the way these poor animals were. This is truly shameful.
it would be nice for someone to post a list of companies that buy and use meat from these companies
I am outraged. I don't care who did this, illegals or legals, it is wrong and in a country like America, why are we the people allowing this low life mentality to prevail? Regardless of who eats this meat, the bigger picture to me is it's time for us to evolve out of this "man's dominion" over life attitude and start becoming the steward's over life that we should be. Put people like this on an island and let them have at it with each other. If people can do this to an animal, believe me, they'll just as easily do it to another person. What's worse to me is not the fact that the kids in school ate this, but imagine telling them how their food was killed. It's time to stop the slaughter and get real. Can you kill your own dinner, or do you buy it already in a package so you don't have to think about it. Enough is enough.
I applaude the man who worked there and took those videos, he is a true hero to me.
HOW DO THESE PEOPLE SLEEP AT NIGHT KNOWING WHAT THEY HAVE DONE TO A LIVING, BREATHING, DEFENCELESS ANIMAL. I'D BE WILLING TO BET THAT THEY ALSO ABUSE THEY SPOUSE'S AS WELL, AND WHO KNOW'S WHAT THEY DO TO THERE OWN PET'S. I HAVE A JOB IN NEW YORK STATE FOR THOSE GUY'S WHO WERE(AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN) FIRED, RUNNING FROM MY CATTLE PROD,HOW DARE YOU.