Google Transit Finally Launches in Los Angeles (Metro Calls it a Data Test)*
From Market to Menu: An Interview With Chef Ben Ford
Dog's 7-year-old Owner Makes Root Beer, Donates Money to Animal Shelters
This Week's Most Popular
 (2)-thumb-110x110-370321.jpg)
Aretha Franklin @ Hollywood Bowl 6/27/09
An e-mail to LAist and Curbed LA yesterday showed us a photo of decapitated chickens found along the Santa Monica Blvd in Silver Lake. "We dont know where they came from or how they got there, but they were in plastic bags, decomposing," the do gooder from the LA Neighborhood Cleanup Project wrote. "We are currently searching for an explanation. Any ideas? Is there an underground cock fighting arena in the neighborhood?"
As a Curbed commenters and Jenny Burman at Chicken Corner, an Echo Park blog, point out, it's probably a Santeria sacrifice. The LAPD speculates the same. "We've had stuff like that over the past three and a half years," explained Detetive Susan Brumagin of the Animal Cruelty Taskforce. "We've had several cases in parks where we find decapitated chic, doves, goats and some other small animals."
Brumagin said that sometimes you get priests who dispose of the animals properly, but in cases like this, it looks like someone did a "quick and dirty" sacrifice, possibly hoping to ward off something bad. Once in the Habor area, she investigated a number pigeons found hanging from a tree outside a courthouse. She later discovered it was a sacrifice done to help someone in a court.
Kapparot, a Jewish holiday where you twirl the chicken around until its neck breaks before giving it to the most poor family in congregation, is the second most common animal sacrifice found in Los Angeles.
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
I called 311 about these on Friday. What has not been noted in the reporting by the person on the Sunday clean-up crew, but may be significant, is that there was also at least one dove among the chickens...
This makes me sad. :( But, what I don't understand is why this would be considered animal cruelty and, thus, people get worked up about it, but slaughterhouses are still totally fine. Yay for disconnect!
While I don't eat meat, I think the difference is that the birds killed for food are being used thusly - to provide sustinence. These were killed for ostensibly religious reasons which, while that arguably provides sustinence in a different way, is much closer to wonton killing in the eyes of those outside the religion.
i see this in the LA river all the time. roosters, chickens, pigeons..all with no heads. Must keep the spirits away or somethin.
I don't practice santeria, I ain't got no crystal ball...
These are not the type of chickens used in cockfighting. They are of the meat/egg laying variety and more than likely were simply unwanted and were killed by pulling off their heads. Old school way of killing chickens for eating or simply ending their lives.
This is very sad for a lot of reasons which everyone can figure out or interpret on their own. But as a practitioner of Santeria, this looks like a completely juvenile and ludicrous attempt at an Ebbos, likely performed by someone who has absolutely no knowledge of Santeria as a religion and way of worship… Ordinarily I would never “pin” such a ridiculous scene on a what is in reality a beautiful and misunderstood religion- but the blue cloth is left behind is more of what clues me in (often used). And if the other material is what I THINK it is (looks like underwear?) it’s a crude attempt at a “love” type spell, sigh. In my opinion some idiot likely read some “how to” book and went from there. Please please PLEASE do not associate this with Santeria ok? But please DO find the person who has done an injustice by harming these animals in this particular way and making a mockery of the religion.
Can't believe I missed this. How come no one ever notices my vodou?
Can't believe I missed this. How come no one ever notices my vodou?