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🤷WTF? Silence of the goats

DocZaius

DocZaius

Lisan al Gaib
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tl;dr: Little girl puts up goat for auction, changes mind at the last minute. State fair that ran auction did not allow her to withdraw it. Goat gets sold to state senator. Mother steals goat but asks state senator and state fair to be human beings and offers to pay everyone involved. State senator's office agrees, but state fair says "No, we have to teach this 9-year-old girl a lesson. We're calling the cops." Cops spend a considerable amount of time and money tracking down the goat, seize it, and presumably it has met its fate at a "community barbeque."

Full story in the spoiler:

The 15-page search warrant and affidavit were very specific about the target Shasta County sheriff’s officials were after.

“The location is a single family residence in a rural residential area,” the warrant, signed at 6:33 p.m. on July 8 by Shasta County Superior Court Judge Monique McKee, read. “The property has a tan colored residence with a brown composite style roof.”

The document was accompanied by ground-level and aerial photos of the property, along with a street address in Napa and the notation that the subject of the search warrant had been “stolen or embezzled.”

Officers were permitted to “utilize breaching equipment to force open doorway(s), entry doors, exit doors, and locked containers in pursuit of their target,” the warrant said, then listed areas that might be searched.

“The residence, including all rooms, attics, basements, and other parts therein, the surrounding grounds and any garages, sheds, storage rooms, and outbuildings of any kind large enough to accommodate a small goat,” the warrant said.

Thus began the legal saga of Cedar the goat, a 7-month-old white Boer goat with chocolate markings framing its face who is now the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit naming Shasta sheriff’s officials, Shasta County, the Shasta District Fair and other defendants who are accused of involvement in the apparent slaughter of Cedar for a community barbecue.

The details of Cedar’s short life are spelled out in the lawsuit, originally filed in August and amended in March, as well as court documents, emails and other records obtained by The Sacramento Bee through California Public Records Act requests.

The records show the lengths to which officials went to retrieve the goat, turning to law enforcement rather than using a civil court action to decide the matter, say attorneys Ryan Gordon and Vanessa Shakib, who co-founded the non-profit Advancing Law for Animals law firm. They are representing Jessica Long, whose daughter raised Cedar.

“Looking at this case, what we see is county and fair officials improperly used their authority and connections to transform a purely civil dispute into a sham criminal matter,” Shakib said.

Cedar had been purchased in April 2022 by Long for her 9-year-old daughter, who fed and cared for the goat every day, eventually bonding with the animal.

“She loved him as a family pet,” the lawsuit says.

The family entered Cedar into the Shasta District Fair’s junior livestock auction on June 24, 2022, the suit says, an event in which animals entered for auction are part of a “terminal sale” in which they are sold off to be used as meat – “no exceptions,” a fair brochure says.

But before bidding began the Long family changed their minds and tried to back out before Cedar was auctioned off, something fair officials said was not allowed.

Fair officials declined comment when the lawsuit was filed and did not respond to a request for comment Friday. Officials with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which oversees county fair and exposition districts, also declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

The goat was sold on June 25 to a representative of state Sen. Brian Dahle for $902, with $63.14 going to the fair and $838.86 meant to go to Cedar’s owner, who by then was sobbing in the goat’s pen and telling her mother that she did not want her pet goat slaughtered, the lawsuit says.

That night, the last day of the fair, as Long’s daughter was saying goodbye to Cedar, Long decided to act.

“It was heartbreaking...,” Long wrote in a June 27 email to the Shasta District Fair. “The barn was mostly empty and at the last minute I decided to break the rules and take the goat that night and deal with the consequences later,” her email read.

“I knew when I took it that my next steps were to make it right with the buyer and the fairgrounds.”

Long wrote that she had communicated with Dahle’s office, which did not object to the goat being saved from slaughter.

“I will pay you back for the goat and any other expenses I caused,” Long wrote. “I would like to ask for your support in finding a solution.”

But the solution offered by the fair and the California Department of Food and Agriculture was simply for Long to return Cedar.

“As a mother I am not unsympathetic regarding your daughter and her love for her animal,” Shasta District Fair Chief Executive Officer Melanie Silva emailed Long the next day. “Having said that please understand the fair industry is set up to teach our youth responsibility and for the future generations of ranchers and farmers to learn the process and effort it takes to raise quality meat.

“Making an exception for you will only teach out youth that they do not have to abide by the rules that are set up for all participants.”

Silva added that CDFA had informed her that “for the good of all we have to stick to the State Rules.”

“Unfortunately, this is out of my hands...,” she wrote, adding, “You will need to bring the goat back to the Shasta District Fair immediately.”

Silva sent another email the next day to a CDFA official, informing him that an organizer of the community barbecue “has contacted her lawyers regarding the theft of the goat donated to the bbq.”

By then, the livestock manager at the Shasta District Fair had begun texting Long on her cell phone warning of serious consequences if she did not turn over Cedar, according to copies of the texts provided by Long’s attorney.

“We need to make arrangements to get goat back today,” a June 28 text from B.J. Mcfarlane read. “If not law enforcement is going to be brought in on this.”

“The fair has instructed me to contact you to get the goat to the fairgrounds by 10 am Wednesday June 29,” another text read. “If this does not happen they will be forced to contact authorities.”

Mcfarlane did not respond to a request for comment, but the lawsuit says he also had called Long the day after the goat was taken and threatened to have her charged with a felony count of grand theft if she did not return Cedar.

“The live stock manager has been in contact with me and is threatening to have me arrested for a felony of stealing livestock unless I return the goat for slaughter immediately,” Long wrote in her email to the fair CEO.

Silva also raised the notion of contacting law enforcement, writing in a June 29 email to CDFA, “Should we involve CHP next?”

Written records released by CDFA to The Bee do not reflect how law enforcement came to be involved, but two weeks after the goat was taken Shasta sheriff’s Detective Jeremy Ashbee filed a search warrant affidavit seeking permission to seize it.

The search warrant targeted the Bleating Hearts Farm and Sanctuary, a non-profit rescue group in Napa, and included the detailed description of the property and the goat.

By then, Shasta County sheriff’s Lt. Jerry Fernandez and Detective Jacob Duncan were already on their way to the sanctuary, having stopped in Arbuckle at a truck stop to purchase $95.64 in gas at 6 p.m., according to records released to The Bee by Shasta sheriff’s officials.

That gas purchase was $32.50 more than the fair district would have received as its share of the auction proceeds for Cedar, money the lawsuit says Long offered to repay to the fair.

Public records do not describe what happened once they arrived at Bleating Hearts, and the operators of the sanctuary did not respond to a request for comment.

But the lawsuit filed by Long says the goat was never at Bleating Hearts.

Officials may have believed Cedar was there because of an Instagram post on the Bleating Hearts account urging people to call or email the Shasta District Fair to “pardon” to goat from slaughter.

“HE IS DUE TO BE KILLED TOMORROW,” THE POST READ. “HIS FAMILY IS WILLING TO DO ANYTHING TO KEEP HIM SAFE FOR THEIR DAUGHTER.”

The fair’s CEO, Silva, made an apparent reference to that post in her email to Long demanding return of the goat, writing that “in this era of social media this has been a negative experience for the fairgrounds as this has been all over Facebook and Instagram, not the best way to teach our youth the value of responsibility.”

Instead of Bleating Hearts, Cedar was being kept at an unnamed Sonoma County farm Long had emailed seeking help.

“It was a farm to donate my daughter’s goat to where he would clear land for fire prevention,” Long wrote in her email to the fair. “The farmer has contracts with CalFire, elementary schools, and other important agencies.

“This resonated strongly with us as a beautiful solution since we moved here shortly before the Carr Fire and almost lost our home to it.”

The lawsuit says that after Fernandez and Duncan discovered the goat was not at Bleating Hearts, they made their way to the Sonoma County farm to take Cedar into custody even though they “had no warrant to search and seize Cedar at the Sonoma Farm.”

The sheriff’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit, but in a court filing Thursday denied most of the claims and said no warrant was needed at the Sonoma farm.

“Defendants assert that no warrant was necessary to retrieve Cedar at the Sonoma Farm as they had consent from the property owner to retrieve the goat,” the filing says.

The two deputies and Cedar then drove more than 200 miles back to Shasta County, stopping again in Arbuckle for another $94.95 in gas, records show.

From there, the goat was delivered to unnamed individuals at the fair “for slaughter/destruction” even though the warrant required them to hold the goat for a court hearing to determine its lawful owner, the lawsuit says.

What precisely happened to Cedar – and whether he ended up on plates at the community barbecue – remains unclear, Long’s attorneys say.

“At this time we don’t have that specific information and we can only speculate,” Shakib said. “While it hasn’t been confirmed as a factual matter, we believe the goat Cedar has been killed.”

Despite that, Cedar’s memory lives on in the form of an online petition “to let the Shasta Fair Association and the Shasta County Sheriff’s deputies reportedly involved in this case know that you denounce the cruel slaughter of Cedar and that you’d like to see a more compassionate response in any similar situations.”

By late March, the petition reported collecting 35,796 signatures.

The lawsuit, which asks for actual, general and punitive damages, also seeks an order preventing Mcfarlane, Silva or others from discriminating against the girl’s “free expression or viewpoint with respect to livestock in future livestock activities.”

And it asks that Long’s daughter have the ability to participate in future auctions at the fair, but with a clear understanding of her rights to “disaffirm any contract or obligation to sell any livestock she owns through such an auction.”
 
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Oh, you thought this was over? Well, THINK AGAIN!

news.yahoo.com

‘Goatgate’: Fight over Cedar the goat turns to who ate Northern California girl’s pet

“This is just the dumbest thing I have ever heard of, over a stupid goat.”
news.yahoo.com news.yahoo.com

WHO ATE CEDAR'S MEAT? HUH?

View attachment 33870

‘Goatgate’: Fight over Cedar the goat turns to who ate Northern California girl’s pet​

Sam Stanton
Thu, March 14, 2024 at 8:00 AM EDT¡8 min read
82

Who ate Cedar the goat?
Nearly two years after a Northern California family bought the 4-month-old goat for their daughter, then spirited it away from a county fair before it could be auctioned for its meat, that question remains at the center of a legal fight over what happened to Cedar.

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed on behalf of Cedar’s 9-year-old owner in 2022 has sparked an intense legal fight involving a search warrant, a countersuit by Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office and depositions and subpoenas for phone, text and business records.

The dispute also spawned a California Assembly bill that would allow families to withdraw their children’s animals from auctions before they are transported from a fair for slaughter.

And the fight has drawn national scrutiny, ridicule and death threats for the principals involved in Shasta County, where the brown and white goat was last seen and, according to court records, was slaughtered on June 28, 2022.

But documents filed in Sacramento federal court this month show there still is no clear answer as to when or where Cedar was killed, or who ended up with his meat.

“This is just the dumbest thing I have ever heard of, over a stupid goat,” said Serene Nehls, co-owner of Bowman Meat Co. in Cottonwood, who says her family butcher shop has been wrongly dragged into the controversy.

“They’ve subpoenaed me three times over this stupid thing. They finally sent me an affidavit the other day to say that we did not kill that goat.”
Who ultimately killed Cedar and who ate it remains unclear, despite court filings suggesting that Redding’s Vista Real Estate firm may have ended up with the meat, something the company owner flatly denies.

“We didn’t get Cedar or Cedar’s meat,” owner Chad Phillips said in a phone interview last week, during which he referred to the controversy as “Goatgate.”

“I just know about it from the local news coverage here. I imagine the attorneys are just casting a wide net.”

The state’s countersuit has since been dismissed, but the amount of legal effort that has gone into the dispute over Cedar rivals some lawsuits that have made their way through federal court in Sacramento over claims involving police brutality or financial fraud accusations.

Few cases have drawn as much as attention as the one involving Cedar, whose short life has now gone viral.

“The top three most popular tweets about Cedar’s case obtained over 16 million impressions,” say court papers filed in December by lawyers for the family that owned Cedar. “One petition seeking justice for Cedar obtained 79,516 supporters, while another petition obtained 43,065 supporters.”
The saga began when Jessica Long decided in 2022 to enter her 9-year-old daughter’s goat in the Shasta District Fair’s junior livestock auction, which is an annual affair that includes a “terminal sale” in which the animals are sold off to the highest bidder to be slaughtered for their meat.

Jessica Long’s daughter holds a photo of her goat Cedar on in March at Minder Park in Redding before the family pet was seized by sheriff’s officials and taken to slaughter. Lezlie Sterling/lsterling@sacbee.com
Jessica Long’s daughter holds a photo of her goat Cedar on in March at Minder Park in Redding before the family pet was seized by sheriff’s officials and taken to slaughter. Lezlie Sterling/lsterling@sacbee.com

By the time Cedar was auctioned off on June 25 to a representative of state Sen. Brian Dahle, R-Bieber, for $902, the girl, identified in court papers as “E.L.” because she is a minor, had become overwhelmed at the thought of her pet goat being killed and eaten.

After seeing the little girl sobbing in Cedar’s pen at the fair, Long liberated the goat from the barn and drove it to an animal sanctuary in Sonoma County.

She also sought to reason with fair officials, offering to pay for any expenses and receiving permission from Dahle’s office to cancel the sale.
But officials from the fair and the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which oversees fair districts, were having none of it.
Bruce John “BJ” Macfarlane, the livestock manager for the Shasta District Fair, called and threatened Long with a grand theft charge if Cedar was not returned, court records say.

“I asked her that we need to get the goat back,” Macfarlane said during a November deposition, portions of which were filed in court this month. “And she said, ‘There’s got to be some other way.’

“And I said, ‘No, there’s no other way, that you don’t own the goat at this time. It’s my opinion you’re stealing something over $400 of agricultural commodities. It’s considered a felony,’ which I had to look it up.”

Eventually, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office was on the case.

On July 8, 2022, two sheriff’s officials drove more than 200 miles to retrieve Cedar from a goat farm in Sonoma County and deposited him with Macfarlane, court records say.

“Goat is at my house...” Macfarlane texted Kathie Muse, a 4-H volunteer and an organizer of the fair’s annual barbecue. “Talked to sheriff and he said to wait until he talks to DA before we kill goat.

“It is perfectly fine at my house till we figure it out.”

Cedar the goat shown before the family pet was seized by sheriff’s officials and taken to slaughter, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit. Advancing Law for Animals
Cedar the goat shown before the family pet was seized by sheriff’s officials and taken to slaughter, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit. Advancing Law for Animals

While Cedar was spending his final days at Mcfarlane’s home, lawyers for the family that owned Cedar were calling Shasta County sheriff’s and county officials trying to determine whether the goat was still alive, but say they were stonewalled.

Now, legal filings by Long family lawyers Ryan Gordon and Vanessa Shakib question how forthcoming Macfarlane, Muse and Shasta District Fair Chief Executive Officer Melanie Silva have been about what happened to Cedar.

“To date, neither Ms. Silva, Mr. Macfarlane, nor Mrs. Muse have offered any credible testimony as to who greenlit Cedar’s death, or who, if anyone, received Cedar’s meat,” a filing from the attorneys says. “Ms. Silva, Mr. Macfarlane, and Mrs. Muse all originally stated they did not know who received Cedar’s meat.”

Court filings pinpoint the date of Cedar’s demise as July 28, 2022, and Macfarlane said in his first deposition that Bowman Meats came to his house and retrieved the goat.

In a second deposition in February, Macfarlane testified that he was told Vista Real Estate ended up with Cedar’s meat.

The Long family attorneys are now seeking a court order directed at Bowman Meats for “all records related to a goat it slaughtered, or assisted in the slaughter of, on about July 28, 2022, at the request of BJ Macfarlane, including, but not limited to, records reflecting the person(s) or company who received the animal’s meat.”

The lawyers also have asked for an order compelling production of all Vista Real Estate records “related to any goat meat Vista Real Estate acquired from, or that related to, the Shasta District Fair & Event Center between June 25, 2022, and September 1, 2022.”

“Oh, my God, when are they going to leave us alone?” Nehls, the Bowman Meats co-owner, asked when contacted last week by The Sacramento Bee.

Nehls said Bowman Meats never saw Cedar, adding that the butcher shop’s “kill schedule” is for slaughtering on Wednesdays and Fridays and that Cedar was supposedly picked up from Macfarlane’s and killed on July 28, 2022 — a Thursday.

She added that a mobile slaughterer she sent out to Macfarlane’s to get a goat during that time frame would have gone on a Saturday because he works during the week as a state worker, and that he later told her the goat he killed and skinned on site was black and white, not a white and brown goat like Cedar.

“He just brought the carcass here,” she said. “The only thing I received was a carcass.

“If it was a black and white goat it couldn’t have been him. It couldn’t have been. It’s just as simple as that.”

Cedar the goat was auctioned off in June 2022 at a Shasta County fair, but the family that owned the goat had second thoughts and offered to pay any losses to keep the pet from being slaughtered. Advancing Law for Animals
Cedar the goat was auctioned off in June 2022 at a Shasta County fair, but the family that owned the goat had second thoughts and offered to pay any losses to keep the pet from being slaughtered. Advancing Law for Animals

A written declaration Nehls sent to the Long family lawyers this month states that the goat taken from Macfarlane’s was to go to Vista Real Estate as a replacement for another goat that had been deemed “inadequate” and needed to be replaced.

“This is totally a nightmare,” she added. “They’re putting it out there that we did something we did not do, and that’s not right to me.”

Phillips, of Vista Real Estate, said his firm always supports 4-H efforts by buying animals at auction.

“We always buy a couple of animals,” he said. “The kids work hard.

“We believe it instills a good work ethic.”

He added that the goat he received came from a family he knows, and that its name was “Loin, like in a pork loin.”

“It’s delicious,” he said. “It’s basically lamb with a lesser marketing pedigree.”

And, he added, the only thing he knows about Cedar comes from the media coverage.

“I don’t even have a strong opinion on the Cedar thing,” Phillips said. “I’ve got a heart for the little girl, and I’ve got a heart for the goat, and I’ve got a heart for 4-H.”
 
No, the Central Valley is major agricultural area. Outside of the hippie coasts and college towns it’s normal. My friend I got hired is from north of sf and wants to burn everything down more than me lol
 
Evil gator said:
No, the Central Valley is major agricultural area. Outside of the hippie coasts and college towns it’s normal. My friend I got hired is from north of sf and wants to burn everything down more than me lol
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I meant, I expected California to have banned such things as animal abuse or some woke nonsense. Breeding more livestock produces more methane, that kind of stupidity.
 
There's been a 6 point buck in my front yard for over 10 minutes. Most of that it was in my driveway, almost right on my front porch. For a few it just stared at me through the window. The neighbor startled it. I refilled the cat food and water on the porch, curious if that's what brought it around.
 
Juggs said:
:lol:

2 hours later, it's still there. Just laid down my side yard and chillin'. Pretty scrawny, food must be scarce where it comes from. I left some canned green beans out for it :lol:
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Lots of woods behind the cemetery that go out past 53rd.
 
Panamag8or said:
Lots of woods behind the cemetery that go out past 53rd.
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Yeah, use to walk my dog back there all the time. I see them walking through the neighborhood to creek often enough. One has never just plopped down in my yard before. Still there almost 3 hours later. If I wake up to a dead deer in my yard in this muggy, still kinda hot heat, I will not be pleased :lol:
 
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