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Public criticism mounting over cow shooting incide
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Public criticism mounting over cow shooting incident
By Karen White - Staff Writer
6/6/02 As public criticism mounted over the California Highway Patrol's shooting of six cows near Highway 1 at Division Road Sunday night, the agency in San Luis Obispo is refusing to provide information on the incident.
This is because the shootings remain under investigation, CHP public information officers in San Luis Obispo and Sacramento said Wednesday afternoon.
The agency said it would provide information after the investigation is complete, but gave no timetable for the completion of the report or release of additional facts on the incident.
The heifers were shot, the CHP said, for public safety. The fear was that the young cows would walk on the roadway and cause collisions with vehicles.
Along with the general public and ranchers, the incident has angered other law enforcement agencies who said it has given them a "black eye."
Several persons who know cattle say that having filled themselves on broccoli and lettuce, the branded cattle would have slept in the field overnight and would not have wandered onto the nearby roadway.
They were shot in a lettuce field. Cattle owner Albert Silva of Santa Maria said it appeared some of the cattle were lying down when shot. They were at least 50 yards from the highway, he said.
An e-mail predicted the CHP would not give details and would "cover up" the incident.
Another said that if the CHP could shoot cattle beside the road, they could also shoot wild deer on the edge of the pavement.
But others defended the CHP action, reminding that collisions between vehicles and livestock have resulted in severe injuries and deaths in past years on the Central Coast.
One crash resulted in the death of an infant. That case is the subject of a civil suit.
The CHP refused to say just when the agency received its first 9-1-1 cell phone report of cattle near or on Highway 1, just inside San Luis Obispo County.
The CHP would not give the name of the officer or officers who actually shot the six branded heifer cows.
The agency did say a handgun and rifle had been used. It appeared the cattle had been shot in the neck, which ranchers say is one of the better places, along with a heat shot, to kill a cow.
The CHP did return to the site Tuesday for study and measurements, although the cattle had been taken to the tallow works the day before.
No time frame has been provided. An unofficial source said officers spent 2 1/2 hours and the CHP dispatch center made numerous calls and could not found anyone willing to rescue the cattle.
Silva said the cattle had escaped a fenced pasture in the Santa Maria River. Silva said he knew the cattle were gone and had planned a Monday morning search.
Guadalupe Police Department officers were called to back up the CHP along Highway 1, but allegedly were not involved in the shooting.
Sheriff's rural crime officers from San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties were not called to the scene, although these officers deal regularly with such crimes as rustling and have special cattle identification training.
No calls were made to the state brand inspectors in the two counties. One lives near Orcutt, only about 15 minutes away.
"Why did they do this?" asked longtime cattlemen Bob Williams, who ranches at the northeast corner of Highway 101 and Highway 166. "They have been excellent with me, and there has been a big danger (to people) with my cattle out on 166," he said.
"There has got to be a reason," Williams said. If not, he continued, "What they did was totally unresponsible."
Recently retired Santa Barbara County sheriff's detective John Kinney, who headed up rural crime, said Wednesday he was "outraged" by the shooting incident.
Kinney, during the past 20 years, worked as a part of a state rural crime task force and within Santa Barbara County.
This group, and the CHP, worked together to prepare information to deal with loose cattle, information which Kinney says is available at the CHP dispatch center in San Luis.
The center serves the CHP in San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria and Buellton.
"They killed private property on private property," Kinney said, questioning the moral and ethical issues of their actions.
"They're wrong on this big time," Kinney said.
This shooting incident is not much different from a criminal investigation involving youths who killed cattle on a ranch in Tepusquet.
The youths were prosecuted and found guilty.
"This is not good ... are they going to kill all the cows on the highway?" Kinney said.
Staff writer Karen White can be reached by e-mail at kwhite@pulitzer.net http://www.lompocrecord.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2002/June/06-2326-news06.txt
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Karen White - Staff Writer
6/6/02 As public criticism mounted over the California Highway Patrol's shooting of six cows near Highway 1 at Division Road Sunday night, the agency in San Luis Obispo is refusing to provide information on the incident.
This is because the shootings remain under investigation, CHP public information officers in San Luis Obispo and Sacramento said Wednesday afternoon.
The agency said it would provide information after the investigation is complete, but gave no timetable for the completion of the report or release of additional facts on the incident.
The heifers were shot, the CHP said, for public safety. The fear was that the young cows would walk on the roadway and cause collisions with vehicles.
Along with the general public and ranchers, the incident has angered other law enforcement agencies who said it has given them a "black eye."
Several persons who know cattle say that having filled themselves on broccoli and lettuce, the branded cattle would have slept in the field overnight and would not have wandered onto the nearby roadway.
They were shot in a lettuce field. Cattle owner Albert Silva of Santa Maria said it appeared some of the cattle were lying down when shot. They were at least 50 yards from the highway, he said.
An e-mail predicted the CHP would not give details and would "cover up" the incident.
Another said that if the CHP could shoot cattle beside the road, they could also shoot wild deer on the edge of the pavement.
But others defended the CHP action, reminding that collisions between vehicles and livestock have resulted in severe injuries and deaths in past years on the Central Coast.
One crash resulted in the death of an infant. That case is the subject of a civil suit.
The CHP refused to say just when the agency received its first 9-1-1 cell phone report of cattle near or on Highway 1, just inside San Luis Obispo County.
The CHP would not give the name of the officer or officers who actually shot the six branded heifer cows.
The agency did say a handgun and rifle had been used. It appeared the cattle had been shot in the neck, which ranchers say is one of the better places, along with a heat shot, to kill a cow.
The CHP did return to the site Tuesday for study and measurements, although the cattle had been taken to the tallow works the day before.
No time frame has been provided. An unofficial source said officers spent 2 1/2 hours and the CHP dispatch center made numerous calls and could not found anyone willing to rescue the cattle.
Silva said the cattle had escaped a fenced pasture in the Santa Maria River. Silva said he knew the cattle were gone and had planned a Monday morning search.
Guadalupe Police Department officers were called to back up the CHP along Highway 1, but allegedly were not involved in the shooting.
Sheriff's rural crime officers from San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties were not called to the scene, although these officers deal regularly with such crimes as rustling and have special cattle identification training.
No calls were made to the state brand inspectors in the two counties. One lives near Orcutt, only about 15 minutes away.
"Why did they do this?" asked longtime cattlemen Bob Williams, who ranches at the northeast corner of Highway 101 and Highway 166. "They have been excellent with me, and there has been a big danger (to people) with my cattle out on 166," he said.
"There has got to be a reason," Williams said. If not, he continued, "What they did was totally unresponsible."
Recently retired Santa Barbara County sheriff's detective John Kinney, who headed up rural crime, said Wednesday he was "outraged" by the shooting incident.
Kinney, during the past 20 years, worked as a part of a state rural crime task force and within Santa Barbara County.
This group, and the CHP, worked together to prepare information to deal with loose cattle, information which Kinney says is available at the CHP dispatch center in San Luis.
The center serves the CHP in San Luis Obispo, Santa Maria and Buellton.
"They killed private property on private property," Kinney said, questioning the moral and ethical issues of their actions.
"They're wrong on this big time," Kinney said.
This shooting incident is not much different from a criminal investigation involving youths who killed cattle on a ranch in Tepusquet.
The youths were prosecuted and found guilty.
"This is not good ... are they going to kill all the cows on the highway?" Kinney said.
Staff writer Karen White can be reached by e-mail at kwhite@pulitzer.net http://www.lompocrecord.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2002/June/06-2326-news06.txt
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
I am utterly appalled by this.Is this a case of barn yard profiling.
Dr.Evil
Dr.Evil
Pack slow, fall stable, pull high, hit dead center.
Out in the burbs, common retrevial of horses and cows are handled quite well with no animal's being shot! Makes you wonder what those on the west coast are thinking!!!
Of course I can play the piano, as long as it has pedals!