Investigation Sought After Cow Shot in Head Five Times at Slaughterhouse

PETA Cites Federal Reports Showing That Pataskala Meats’ Workers Failed to Stun Cow, Pig and Death Came Slowly

For Immediate Release:
June 8, 2017

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Armed with damning U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports, PETA sent a letter to Pataskala Police Chief Bruce Brooks this morning calling on him to investigate Pataskala Meats and, as appropriate, file criminal charges against the slaughterhouse workers who failed to stun a cow and a pig on the first attempts, causing both animals to struggle even after they had been shot in the head.

According to the USDA documents, operations at Pataskala Meats have been suspended twice in the past three months. In one incident, a worker used a .22-caliber rifle to shoot a struggling cow in the head five times. In the second, a fully conscious pig endured a shotgun blast above the eye and—squealing and with blood pouring from the wound—tried frantically to escape. PETA notes that these incidents appear to violate Ohio’s cruelty statute, which prohibits a person from torturing or mutilating an animal.

“PETA is calling for a criminal investigation into incidents in which slaughterers caused a pig to scream in agony and a cow to struggle to stand as he was shot in the head over and over again,” says PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch. “There’s no difference between the terror and pain that these animals felt and how dogs and cats would feel in the same circumstances.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that animals have the same central nervous system and sense of self-preservation as humans and that the only way to prevent cows, pigs, and other gentle creatures from suffering in this and other slaughterhouses is to go vegan.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.