For Instant Launch:
October 18, 2023
Contact:
Brittney Williams 202-483-7382
Alexandria, La. – As we speak, PETA despatched a letter to Rapides Parish District Legal professional Phillip Terrell asking him so as to add cruelty-to-animals expenses to the arson and associated expenses that Laura McLaughlin already faces in connection to a number of wildfires within the Union Hill space, together with the Freeway 113 hearth.
The group factors out that the roughly 7,000 acres of timberland burned have been dwelling to numerous wild animals and that prosecutors in California and Oregon pursued such expenses in comparable instances that resulted in convictions final yr.
“As these devastating fires ravaged the land, an unknowable variety of terrified animals noticed their properties disappear and lots of have been certainly injured or burned to loss of life in agony,” says PETA Senior Vice President Daphna Nachminovitch. “PETA is asking District Legal professional Terrell to carry the perpetrator accountable for inflicting a lot struggling.”
PETA—whose motto reads, partially, that “animals should not ours to abuse in any method”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For extra info, please go to PETA.org, take heed to The PETA Podcast, or observe the group on X (previously Twitter), Fb, or Instagram.
PETA’s letter to Terrell follows.
October 18, 2023
The Honorable Phillip Terrell
District Legal professional
Rapides Parish
Expensive Mr. Terrell:
I hope this letter finds you nicely. I’m writing to request that your workplace add cruelty-to-animals expenses, as applicable, to the arson and associated expenses that Laura McLaughlin at present faces in connection to a number of wildfires within the Union Hill space, together with the Freeway 113 hearth.
Fortunately, no people misplaced their lives, however the numerous wild animals who lived on the roughly 7,000 acres of timberland have been undoubtedly much less lucky. The close by Kisatchie Nationwide Forest is dwelling to an enormous variety of animals, together with swamp rabbits, armadillos, Louisiana black bears, and endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers. Wildfires inflict terror and struggling on these and different animals—together with extended, agonizing deaths.
La. Rev. Stat. § 102.1(A) states that “[a]ny one who deliberately or with felony negligence … [m]istreats any dwelling animal by any act … whereby pointless or unjustifiable bodily ache, struggling, or loss of life is induced to … the animal” is responsible of cruelty to animals. Provided that McLaughlin is accused of deliberately beginning a number of wildfires that certainly led to pointless and unjustifiable ache, struggling, and loss of life for an untold variety of animals—and that such conduct hardly qualifies because the lawful looking of wildlife in any other case exempt from prosecution—we respectfully ask that investigators and your workplace add cruelty-to-animals expenses to these she already faces. Prosecutors in California and Oregon pursued these expenses in comparable instances that resulted in convictions final yr.
Thanks on your consideration of this necessary matter and for the tough work you do.
Sincerely,
Sarah Deffinger
Senior Proof Analyst
Cruelty Investigations Division
