Meat worker: I did as told
Man charged with cruelty says it's unfair
Monica Rodriguez, Staff Writer
Article Launched: 03/06/2008 09:07:01 PM PST


ADELANTO - One of the two Chino slaughterhouse employees charged with animal cruelty says he doesn't understand why he's in jail when he just did what his boss told him to do.
"That's how I was taught. He taught me to do the work. I didn't know it was a serious crime," said Luis Sanchez Herrera in Spanish at the Adelanto Detention Center.

The Chino man was charged along with his supervisor after the Humane Society of the United States released an undercover video in January showing what appeared to be inhumane treatment of cows at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co.

The cows were sick or injured and unable to make their way down the slaughter line.

The actions resulted in the arrests of the two workers, the suspension of two U.S. Department of Agriculture employees and the largest recall of beef in the nation's history.

Daniel Ugarte Navarro, a Pomona resident and the former pen manager at the facility, was charged with felony animal abuse and misdemeanor counts of illegally moving crippled cows.

Ugarte Navarro, who was Sanchez Herrera's supervisor, let it be known that the methods he used to move cattle along were taught to him by one of the owners of the company, Sanchez Herrera said.

Ugarte Navarro was released from jail last month after posting bail.

Sanchez Herrera, 33, is being held without bail on immigration charges, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. He also had warrants


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stemming from two drug-related cases. In both, prosecutors charged him under different aliases.
Sanchez Herrera said he appears once in the Humane Society video using an electric prod, but added that Ugarte Navarro is also on the video. A total of four people were involved, he said.

"I think it's unjust that I'm here. Where are the people in charge?" Sanchez Herrera asked.

Sanchez Herrera said he began working at the slaughterhouse about 10 years ago after a relative who worked there told him to leave his job at a Los Angeles packing company and join him in Chino.

Sanchez Herrera said he grew up on a farm in the Mexican state of Colima and as a boy began caring for farm animals - including cows - and continued to do so as an adult.

When he first arrived at the slaughterhouse, Sanchez Herrera said he felt bad when he saw how the animals were moved.

"They feel (pain), too," he said. "How can you treat a poor animal that way?"

But Sanchez Herrera said Ugarte Navarro would use a forklift to move the cows along and showed him that was a way to handle the animals.

He added that his supervisor told workers to use care handling the cows when federal inspectors were at the plant.

Sanchez Herrera said he learned that Westland/Hallmark was handling the animals differently than other slaughterhouses from the truck drivers who brought the cows to the plant.

When he said he approached his boss about the treatment, Ugarte Navarro "said I didn't know anything and I was nobody," he said.

Even though the pay was low and the work week stretched out six and sometimes seven days, Sanchez Herrera said he continued working at Westland/Hallmark because he needed to support his wife and two children.

Sanchez Herrera is an undocumented immigrant and doesn't drive, which added to the difficulty of finding other work.

Since he's been in jail, Sanchez Herrera said he hasn't heard from his wife because she doesn't have a way of reaching the jail. He said he is the family's sole breadwinner and is concerned about how his wife will pay the rent and bills.
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