Two Slaughterhouse Employees Charged with Cattle Abuse

The San Bernardino County district attorney's office filed criminal charges Friday against two former employees of a Chino meat company. The action follows a couple of weeks after undercover video surfaced showing employees of the Westland-Hallmark Meat Company using forklifts and other coercive tactics to force crippled cows to slaughter. KPCC's Inland Empire reporter Steven Cuevas has details.

Steven Cuevas: The meat processor fired Daniel Navarro and Luis Sanchez after a Humane Society video surfaced showing the alleged abuse. Now the two men face multiple felony charges of animal cruelty, and misdemeanor charges of illegally moving a non-ambulatory animal.

Michael Ramos: It makes your stomach turn.

Cuevas: District Attorney Michael Ramos.

Ramos: To see what they did to the cows in this situation; shocking them repeatedly as they were moaning, prodded with forklifts. So these folks could make a profit.

Cuevas: The Westland Meat Company is the second largest supplier of beef to the National School Lunch Program. Dozens of school districts across the country have stopped serving the company's meat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has indefinitely suspended production at the facility. Five years ago, the USDA prohibited the slaughter of "downed cattle" for food over concerns about mad cow disease.

Wayne Pacelle: Downers are 50 times more likely to have Mad Cow disease than ambulatory, or walking livestock.

Cuevas: Wayne Pacelle is president of the Humane Society of the United States.

Pacelle: You compound the public health issues when you realize that the animals are downed and they're wallowing in manure for hours, and sometimes more than a day. And those animals are going into the food supply, contaminating equipment, cross-contamination with other carcasses, so it really raises big issues.

Cuevas: The San Bernardino district attorney's office is conducting a separate criminal investigation in conjunction with federal authorities. A California Congressman and other lawmakers are also calling for increased scrutiny of USDA inspection standards. At this time, the federal agency says there's no evidence that tainted meat entered the nation's food supply.