THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220153
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JUNE ARNEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: 68 lines
Digging a moat and filling it with alligators is about the only tactic Earl Edmondson hasn't used to protect his meat-packing plant from what he describes as a siege by an radical animal-rights group.
In the past 15 months, the underground group, which calls itself the Animal Liberation Front, has claimed responsibility for about a dozen incidents of vandalism at Central Meat Packing on Kempsville Road in Chesapeake.
The campaign escalated last weekend when the group committed acts of vandalism that resulted in an estimated $60,000 damage, police said. That includes damage to refrigeration equipment and meat that spoiled as a result. The intruders cut freon lines, electrical lines and two natural-gas lines, according to Edmondson and a police report.
Bright red letters spray painted on the building read: ``Meat is murder'' and ``Killers.'' The message was signed with the word ``ALF.''
``It was the worst loss we've had ever in our 36 years of business,'' said Edmondson, the company's 70-year-old founder and chief executive officer.
At least half a dozen times, Edmondson has received telephone calls from people who refer to him and his employees as murderers in a high-pitched scream, and then hang up.
In early 1995, ALF representatives allegedly broke a lock and freed three or four lambs and several cows into the parking lot.
``Then they called us up and bragged about it,'' Edmondson said.
Vandals also have thrown a cinder block through a window, slashed tires on trucks, and spray-painted messages in bold red letters.
Chesapeake police are investigating. Edmondson also said detectives told him they would contact the FBI because of the release of freon into the air. Edmondson said he is considering offering a $1,000 reward through Crime Line.
The company sends hams and smoked turkeys across the country for the holidays and sells 22 kinds of sausages.
It slaughters 100 to 150 animals and makes about 100 pounds of barbecue each week, Edmonson said.
The vandals released an estimated 800 pounds of freon from five major refrigeration units, Edmondson said. By late Tuesday afternoon, the company was back in business for the first time since the weekend, but had no pork, sausage and frozen-food cases, Edmondson said.
Edmondson said one meat cooler, which can accommodate about 100 head of cattle, was untouched. The compressor and condenser for that cooler are located inside the building.
For Edmondson, the harassment by ALF is taking its toll.
``You just put the fire out and keep going,'' Edmondson said. ``This is making it very tough. But are we going to give up? No. Are we going to quit? No.''
He has filed three or four insurance claims and about a dozen police reports since ALF started its campaign against his company.
He also has installed security lights, motion and heat detectors and chains behind the building to prevent parking there.
The next plan is to put up a chain-link fence fitted with as many as six surveillance cameras, and to get some dogs.
``They have a right to protest,'' Edmondson said. ``If ALF wants to come out and picket or get on a soap box with a loadspeaker, go ahead . . . But they don't have the right to put somebody out of business or endanger lives by cutting wires . . . About the only message I have for them is, leave us alone, you can't change the world.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/The Virginian-Pilot
Graffiti is a part of the campaign against Earl Edmondson and
Central Meat Packing.
KEYWORDS: VANDALISM ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS by CNB