Huntingdon Protest Moves to the United States; Joseph Bateman arrested again
The protest movement against Huntingdon Life Sciences has gotten extremely violent Great Britain (a full report on that tomorrow), and the protest has moved across the Atlantic as several groups last week protested both at a Huntingdon facility in New Jersey.
Huntingdon owns several labs that specialize in performing safety and toxicity tests with animals. As a New Jersey Home News Tribune story noted, such safety tests using animals are required by the United States Food and Drug administration in order for a drug to gain approval in this country. Michael Caufield, vice president of operations for the companies Franklin, New Jersey, facility, told the Tribune that the lab uses about 5,000 rats, 100 monkeys and 200-400 dogs each year, almost all of whom are euthanized at the end of the experiment to allow for tissue analysis.
On Friday, Sept. 8, about 60 protesters showed up at the Franklin facility carrying animal rights signs. “I’m here to express my grief that 500 animals died today and each day in the name of science at Huntingdon labs throughout the world,” 19 year-old protester James McCrory told The Trenton Times.
After the number of protesters swelled to 60, police attempted to move the protesters to an area on the lawn of the facility. In the process police and protesters got in a scuffle and police arrested five people. Those arrested were Darius Fullmer, 23, an organizer with the Animal Defense League-New Jersey; Ronald J. Blaich, 18; Janell, E. Soto, 22; an unnamed 17-year-old minor; and Joseph Bateman, 20.
Fullmer, Blaich, Soto and the minor were all arrested for disorderly conduct and obstruction and released on bail. Bateman, however, was charged with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest along with disorderly conduct and obstruction charges. His bail was set at $2,500 and he remained in jail as of Saturday.
Bateman, who told reporters he recently quit his job to protest full time against Huntingdon, is no stranger to arrests. The activist, who has been associated in the past with the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade, was convicted of felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor possession of an instrument of crime after he was caught near a fur farm with an ALF-style directory of fur farms of the area and equipment to set animals free from their pens.
I bet the Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade, which as been sued by a furrier who essentially argues that CAFT condones illegal activities and is involved in an illegal conspiracy, will be pleased by Bateman’s latest arrest.
 : In the evening the protesters who weren’t already in jail moved no to protesting at the home of Alan Staple, president of Huntingdon Life Sciences. Staple wasn’t home at the time of the protest. That event went on peacefully with no arrests.
Source:
Five animal activists arrested in lab protest. Nina Rizzo, Home News Tribune, September 9, 2000.
Protesters target Princeton home of research exec. Mark Hamish Barry, The Trenton Times, September 10, 2000.
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