Animal Rights Leader Justifies Violence, LA TImes
11-13-05
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 09:38:17 -0800
Animal Rights Leader Justifies Violence
In a '60 Minutes' interview, the L.A. area activist
says those who harm
'innocent beings' should be stopped by any 'means
necessary.'
By Steve Hymon, Times Staff Writer
One of the leading animal rights activists in the Los
Angeles area has
taken
his campaign to the national stage in recent weeks,
saying that it may
be
"morally justifiable" to kill people to stop medical
research on
animals.
In recent U.S. Senate testimony and in a "60 Minutes"
interview that
will
air tonight on CBS-TV Channel 2, Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a
trauma surgeon,
said he
believes that researchers, slaughterhouse workers and
others who kill
animals "should be stopped using whatever means
necessary."
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Vlasak is a board member of Animal Defense League,
which has held
raucous
protests in the last few years outside the homes of
city animal
services
employees and the residences of Mayor Antonio
Villaraigosa and former
Mayor
James K. Hahn.
The group has demanded that the city stop euthanizing
animals at the
city's
six shelters nearly 25,000 dogs were killed in the
last fiscal year
and
that Villaraigosa live up to his campaign promise to
fire Guerdon
Stuckey,
the general manager who oversees the animal services
department.
The "60 Minutes" segment focuses on the role of
activists, including
Vlasak,
in fighting medical research on animals. The segment
is not about the
situation in Los Angeles.
According to a transcript provided by CBS, when
reporter Ed Bradley
suggests
that Vlasak is advocating murder, Vlasak replies: "I
think people who
torture innocent beings should be stopped. If they
won't stop when you
ask
them nicely, they don't stop when you demonstrate to
them what they're
doing
is wrong, then they should be stopped using whatever
means necessary."
Vlasak also tells Bradley that he would not resort to
violence.
"My role in the movement is not to go out and do
that," he says, "but
to
explain to the mainstream media and to the public in
general why these
people are doing what they're doing."
Last month, at a Senate committee hearing on medical
research on
animals,
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) asked Vlasak to clarify if
"whatever means
necessary" included murder.
"That would be a morally justifiable solution to the
problem," Vlasak
responded.
He has made similar remarks in the past. Last year,
Vlasak was banned
from
Britain because officials there said he was endorsing
violence.
In an interview with The Times, Vlasak, 47, said he is
on the staff of
several hospitals, but declined to name them.
He is married to another of the city's most prominent
animal activists,
Pamelyn Ferdin, who is the co-leader of the Animal
Defense League. In
the
1960s and early '70s, Ferdin was a child actor, best
known as the voice
of
Lucy on the "Charlie Brown" television cartoon shows.
Vlasak said that Ferdin initially got involved in
protesting the
killing of
wolves in Alaska and then introduced him to the
broader field of animal
activism.
The turning point for Vlasak, he said, was reading the
book "Diet for a
New
America," about factory farming.
While living on the East Coast, he joined the Sea
Shepherd Conservation
Society, a group known for using its ship to interfere
with the fishing
industry and seal and whale hunts.
Vlasak said that his recent comments were not intended
to endorse
violence
in the group's campaign in Los Angeles. "I think we
have a reasonable
chance
of succeeding using nonviolent means," he said.
Vlasak said that he was trying to explain that
violence is often
inevitable
in any battle for freedom. "Anyone fighting for their
own liberation
has had
to use violence at some stage of the struggle, and I
don't think animal
independence is any different," he said.
Informed of Vlasak's comments on "60 Minutes,"
Stuckey, the city's
animal
services chief, said he feared that activists might
harm one of his
employees.
"It's no different than Osama bin Laden," Stuckey
said. "He doesn't
strap a
bomb to his chest and kill people on the bus, but he's
the catalyst
that
encourages others to do that."
Stuckey also said that neither Vlasak nor the defense
league is doing
anything to cure animal overpopulation, provide spay
and neuter
services or
combat illegal breeding.
The mayor's office declined to comment on Vlasak's
remarks.
In late October, Villaraigosa met with Vlasak, Ferdin
and another
league
member in his City Hall offices. In a contentious
45-minute session,
the
mayor criticized the protests and refused to fire
Stuckey as long as
activists continued to demonstrate near the homes of
city employees.
Eight
days later, the group protested outside the mayor's
Mount Washington
residence.
The league mailed graphic videos of dogs being killed
at shelters to
the
homes of City Council members. That week, the council
decided to lend
surveillance equipment to city employees threatened by
animal
activists.
While the Animal Defense League harasses city
officials, another group
known
as the Animal Liberation Front has claimed
responsibility for several
acts
of vandalism at the home of shelter employees. The
front also has
claimed
responsibility for arsons across the United States and
is listed as a
terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of
Justice.
Most recently, the group took responsibility for
throwing smoke
grenades
into the hallway of the Bunker Hill apartment building
where Stuckey
lives.
Vlasak often passes along the Animal Liberation
Front's communiques to
the
media, but he has long insisted that he is not a
member and does not
take
part in that group's activities.
Madeline Bernstein, president of the local chapter of
the Society for
the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, criticized Vlasak's
remarks.
"I don't think it helps any of us if the general
public whose support
we
want thinks that any one of us is capable of
throwing smoke grenades
or
murdering people who disagree with us," she said. But
Bernstein, who
was on
a search committee that recommended Stuckey, also
believes that
Villaraigosa
worsened the situation by raising activists' hopes
that he would fire
Stuckey.
Vlasak said that he does not worry that his comments
will cause people
to
dismiss him as an extremist.
"I'm not that concerned about personal fortunes
maybe part of it is
that I
see people die every day at work," he said. "Life is
fragile and I feel
like
I have a message. I abhor the suffering of animals.
I'm not encouraging
anyone to get violent; I'm just looking for what
works."
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