Update From PETA: State Police Invoke Discretionary Rule to Deny Release of Public Records of East Fork Farms Cruelty Case—PETA Accuses Them of Russian-Style ‘Cover-Up’

For Immediate Release:
November 19, 2019

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

The Indiana State Police (ISP) is refusing to release public records from its concluded investigation into East Fork Farms—which resulted in no cruelty-to-animals charges—apparently hiding the records from scrutiny by animal protection advocates by using a discretionary clause in the Indiana Access to Public Records Act.

“At every step of the way, the ISP has shielded East Fork Farms from consequences, despite evidence that pigs on the factory farm are suffering from cruel confinement and have died slowly in dilapidated sheds among roaches, rats, and maggots,” says PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch. “This isn’t Russia, where it’s not unusual to leave the public in the dark and ignore cruelty to animals—this is America, and PETA is calling for public records to be released.”

During the course of its “investigation,” the ISP made unsubstantiated public statements that some of the damning video footage provided by an anonymous whistleblower at East Fork Farms was “staged” and that some of it was recorded on another pig farm, both totally unfounded claims. In response, PETA sent a letter to ISP Superintendent Douglas G. Carter asking him to review the conduct of ISP Versailles District 42 and its failure to hold anyone accountable for the obvious suffering shown in the video.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. More information about East Fork Farms is available here.