Updates on the SOB page at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/348877789075792/:
Two days ago, a Mira Loma resident posted that she had a kill date at 1:30 p.m. yesterday. Kerri and others said they would be there for community support. That night, the resident was contacted by a CDFA agent threatening her with a warrant (and thus the legal power to cut locks) because she had told FB. The agent and her superior agreed to keep the kill date.
Yesterday rolls around. People start showing up about 10 a.m.--not to impede the workers but to observe. A candidate for the Riverside County Board of Supervisors acts as a social welcoming committee. A neighbor brings over a bag of water. Someone goes to Costco and gets some chips. The lawn chairs come out on the side of the road for the elderly,the mothers with babies. Everyone going by slows, has a conversation. Half of them end up joining the protest. A shower passes by overhead. Out come their umbrellas. By noon, minivans and small SUVs line both sides of a two lane road for two blocks, next to people with iPhones, Facebooking live. One of the videos will be on ABC7 Southern California that evening.
And they wait.
A white truck drives by with a PA system. They're killing her chickens right now up the road, she says. Five or so carloads head over. The workers have already put the birds in the garbage can and are gassing them. One has a 4" rip in his hazmat suit. As they exit, they put up caution tape to delineate their walkway. No one touches it. One boy, age about 10, calls out that it's the walk of shame. In the background is the white truck's PA system: "Stop killing our chickens. Stop killing our chickens."
There's a supervisor there. He sprays down their tires as the workers doff their hazmat suits. One of the workers comes over and hugs the homeowner. She is crying. Kerri asks if they are going to the original house next. The owner has taken off of work to be home so that CDFA does not cut her locks and expose her to burglary, or come by when her kids are there. Kerri doesn't get an answer from him, so she called the original agent. No answer. No one shows up.
The posts come in: Another Mira Loma resident; Here's my birds enjoying their last breakfast today. Hello, I live in the city of Riverside, my kill order is Wednesday. The SOB site expands from 1,500 people to almost 2,300 in four days.
They know that the most they can legally do at that point is show up and Facebook Live. It is not inconsequential. No live poultry is stepped on, no airguns aimed toward horses. In the presence of even 20 people, CDFA exercises more compliance to its own rules than has been seen so far. CDFA doesn't like the iPhones, but that's people's First Amendment right, and no government agency can be retaliating by misusing the warrant process to threaten people for utilizing their phone or telling friends.
How we got here is inexcusable, and it should not happen again.
