Thread: Chino Meatpacking Worker Arrested in Recall Case

Chino Meatpacking Worker Arrested in Recall Case
Daniel Ugarte Navarro Charged With Five Felony Counts



(ABCNEWS) By JACOB ADELMAN
February 19, 2008 1:31:33 PM PST

Share Police arrested one of the meatpacking workers charged with animal cruelty in a case involving a Chino slaughterhouse that led to the nation's largest-ever beef recall, authorities said Tuesday.

Video
Slaughterhouse ScandalDaniel Ugarte Navarro was taken into custody Saturday at his Pomona home on a warrant issued the day before, Chino police spokeswoman Michelle Vanderlinden said. He was released Sunday on $7,500 bail.

Navarro, 49, of Pomona was charged with five felony counts of animal abuse and three misdemeanor counts of illegal movement of a non-ambulatory animal, San Bernardino County Deputy District Attorney Debbie Ploghaus said.

Navarro, who had worked as a pen manager at the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co., could face up to 5 years and 8 months in prison, if convicted, she said.


Luis Sanchez, 32, of Chino, who worked under Navarro, was charged with three misdemeanor counts and remained at large, Ploghaus said.

Both men were fired after the Humane Society of the United States released undercover video showing crippled and sick animals at the slaughterhouse being shoved with forklifts.

Prosecutors are continuing to investigate the slaughterhouse for possible labor violations, Ploghaus said.

Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which announced the recall Sunday of some 143 million pounds of beef products dating to Feb. 1, 2006, were also investigating.

A phone message left for Westland president Steve Mendell was not immediately returned Tuesday.

Authorities said the video showed workers kicking, shocking and otherwise abusing "downer" animals that were apparently too sick or injured to walk into the slaughterhouse. Some animals had water forced down their throats, prosecutors said.

Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, chairwoman of the House Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee, called the videotaped treatment inhumane and said she was concerned it "demonstrates just how far our food safety system has collapsed."

DeLauro, D-Conn., also called for an independent investigation into the government's ability to secure the safety of meat in the nation's schools. Westland was a major supplier of beef for the National School Lunch Program.

DeLauro asked Undersecretary Dick Raymond to list schools that could have received the recalled meat, as well as provide an explanation of where the meat was sold commercially and whether it was mixed with beef from other processors.

She also asked how the agency was addressing staff shortages among slaughterhouse inspectors - an issue also raised by several food safety experts and watchdog groups.


Anywhere from 7 percent to 21 percent of inspector positions were left vacant by the USDA, depending on the district, said Felicia Nestor, a senior policy analyst with Washington, D.C.-based Food and Water Watch.

USDA spokesman Keith Williams said the agency did not have a shortage of inspectors. He said his department has evidence that Westland did not routinely contact its veterinarian when cattle became non-ambulatory after passing inspection, violating health regulations.

Williams said the recall was done primarily to revoke the USDA's seal of inspection for the meat - not because of the risk of illness.

Health officials have said no illnesses were being linked to the newly recalled meat.

Officials estimate that about 37 million pounds of the recalled beef went to school programs, but they believe most of the meat probably has already been eaten.

Federal regulations call for keeping downed cattle out of the food supply because they may pose a higher risk of contamination from E. coli, salmonella or mad cow disease since they typically wallow in feces and their immune systems are often weak.

--- Associated Press writer Gillian Flaccus contributed to this report.




http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4312250&page=1

Oh yea. No respect for animals at all from these people. I have seen them in action. They have brought live sheep into our neighborhood and killed them. It even disgusted the policeman. They must have said something to them though, they are killing them in someone else's neighborhood now. These sheep were just screaming. It was just awful.

I want to know why the owners of this slaughter house have not been arrested also.

They are ultimately responsible and I am sick of the rich owners always getting away with being irresponsible and for hiring IA's.

Put a few business owners in jail and they would start cleaning up their act real quick !!

Last updated February 19, 2008 2:39 p.m. PT

Judge asked to stop older Canadian cattle imports over mad cow concerns
By CARSON WALKER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. -- Lawyers representing cattle, consumer and health interests urged a federal judge Tuesday to stop imports of older Canadian cattle because of the potential threat of mad cow disease.

An attorney for the government countered that U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol should not grant the preliminary injunction, saying rules and changes in the industry adequately protect American animals, people and markets.

The lawsuit, filed last fall in federal court in South Dakota, seeks to suspend a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule that went into effect Nov. 19 allowing Canadian cattle more than 30 months old into the U.S. market.

The change exposes consumers to a fatal disease linked to eating meat contaminated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, increases the risk that U.S. cattle would be infected with the disease, and could harm the U.S. cattle market, according to the lawsuit.

BSE is the scientific term for what's known as mad cow disease.

Eating meat with infected tissue is linked to a rare, fatal illness - variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - that has killed more than 150 people worldwide, most of them in Britain.

The lawsuit was filed by Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, or R-CALF; United Stockgrowers of America, based in Billings, Mont.; South Dakota Stockgrowers Association; four South Dakota cattle ranchers; the Center for Food Safety; the Consumer Federation of America; the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation; and Food & Water Watch.

Russell Frye, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, said BSE can incubate in humans for years, so even though changes have been made to protect against it, allowing older cattle into the market increases the chance it can be introduced into American herds.

"There are certainly cases out there where the rules aren't being followed," Frye said, citing the government's recall of 143 million pounds of beef from a California plant where undercover video showed workers shocking, kicking and shoving debilitated cattle that were slaughtered.

Lisa Olson, a U.S. Justice Department lawyer, said there's no way to get 100 percent compliance with any rule.

"All we can do is redouble our efforts to enforce these regulations," she said, adding that hard scientific research, not opinion, indicates that the safeguards in place still make the risk small.

"The likelihood is negligible that this infection would ever reach the animal or human food supply," Olson said.

"USDA isn't afraid to close the borders when necessary. It did that in May 2003 with the discover of the BSE case."

That discovery of an Alberta cow with mad cow disease prompted the United States to close all imports from Canada.

The border between the trade partners reopened for Canadian beef from younger cattle within months of the ban. Live cattle under the age of 30 months have been allowed to move across the border since July 2005. That rule was expanded to older cattle last fall.

The U.S. has had three cases of mad cow disease. The first, in December 2003 in Washington state, was in a cow that had been imported from Canada. The second, in 2005, was in a Texas-born cow. The third was confirmed last year in an Alabama cow. There have been 12 cases of mad cow disease in Canada and one other there involving an imported animal.

Since the USDA rule was relaxed in November, older cattle are being imported at the estimated rate of 175,000 a year - more than twice USDA's estimate, Bill Bullard, R-CALF chief executive officer, told The Associated Press during a break in Tuesday's hearing.

Besides the health concerns, cattlemen worry that cheap Canadian beef will depress domestic prices, reduce exports to countries with tougher standards and steer consumers away from beef.

"This could truly be devastating to the industry," Bullard said.

Olson said when the border closed in 2003, American demand for beef actually increased, and health concerns trump financial worries.

"We can't erect trade barriers unless there's an issue that relates to animal or human health. In this case there is none," she said.

Specifically, the lawsuit argues that the new rule is arbitrary in that it is inconsistent with facts. The USDA also exceeded its legal authority and failed to follow proper procedures in adopting the rule, the lawsuit said.

Olson denied both points.

R-CALF, which represents more than 12,000 U.S. cattle producers, lost a similar lawsuit in Montana after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. agriculture secretary had a firm basis for determining the resumption of Canadian imports would not significantly increase the risk of BSE to the American population.

Piersol asked for more written arguments from the lawyers before he makes his decision. He indicated he has options other than a strict granting or rejecting of an injunction that could include requiring USDA to rewrite its rules.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/642 ... wsuit.html

Craig Watz, an FBI special agent who runs the agro-terrorism conference, says that when he talks at lunches or dinners, he emphasises how people need to change the way they think about food.

"How many people thought about the safety or security of food, who handled it, who prepared it, where it came from?" he asks.

"We do have to be vigilant not only getting on an airplane or in buses or train systems, but we also have to be vigilant in who's handling our food."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5274022.stm

"I did it because they ordered me to. I obeyed them; if not, I lost my job," Sanchez said in Spanish. "I knew it was illegal but they obliged me to do it." Sanchez said he is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico and that he worked at Hallmark for six years before he was fired last month. He is not represented by an attorney.

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-101036-beef.html+recalled

The incubation period for Mad Cow disease can be up to 10 years.

Federal regulations call for keeping downed cattle out of the food supply because they may pose a higher risk of contamination from E. coli, salmonella or mad cow disease since they typically wallow in feces and their immune systems are often weak.

Westland president Steve Mendell and the rest of the management should be charged with animal abuse, hiring illegal immigrant(s) and possibly "agro-terrorism" for allowing sick animals into our food supply (143 million pounds of it).

Perhaps the packing plant should be forfeited to the U.S. government to take the profit out of crime.

SoCal Slaughterhouse Worker Seeks Dismissal of Charges

Last Update: 6:10 am


A lawyer for a meatpacker who was videotaped dragging sick cows at a Chino slaughterhouse wants criminal mistreatment charges dropped against his client.

The undercover video led to the nation's largest-ever beef recall.

Attorney Ruben Salazar has asked a judge to dismiss the charges, saying the charges against Daniel Ugarte Navarro apply only to business entities and not to individual people.

Navarro has pleaded not guilty to five felony counts and three misdemeanor counts of animal abuse. Prosecutors have said he faces more than eight years in prison if convicted as charged.

http://www.fox6.com/news/local/story.as ... 66a1e6739f