California animal rights protesters filmed the moment that they say a livestock hauler “hit” one of the demonstrators.
The video was shared by the Facebook group Chino Cow Save on August 21. It was filmed during a protest at American Beef Packers in Chino, California.
In the video, you can see a demonstrator standing in the way of a truck trying to enter the facility. The truck makes contact with the man but he is clearly not injured.
The video was captioned “Today at #WakeUpWorld Chino Cow Save an organizer was hit by a semi truck full of cows entering American Beef Packers to be slaughtered. Police are now on the scene.”
Following the incident and the social media backlash that resulted, Chino Cow Save took to Facebook to issue a statmeent to the trucking community:
“Thanks to the all of the comments and shares, positive or otherwise. A quick message to those in the trucking community:
As pedestrians, we are allowed to cross the sidewalk and have the right of way when doing so. This has been discussed with the police and they concluded that we are in the parameters of the law to walk across the driveway while the truck waits for us to finish crossing.
If you hit a pedestrian whether they are an activist or not you can be charged with assault with a deadly weapon or manslaughter. This is NOT a threat, we just want to make you aware of the risks in hitting a person with your semi.
It takes us about 30 seconds to walk across the driveway. We are not trying to prevent you from doing your job or making your delivery. We only want a moment for others to bear witness to the beings inside the truck.
Lastly, we are just there for the cows, we have no grievances with you. We understand you are just doing your job, we only want a few seconds (no longer than a stoplight) to share our love with the cows.
Please feel free to message us with any comments or concerns. We would love to open up a dialogue with you.”
Chino Cow Save says that they’ll be doing outreach at truck stops to try to educate drivers about their mission and to decrease the friction between the groups.