By: Erica Zucco
A video posted on YouTube has sparked outrage among animal activists and left death threats against a Roswell meat company.
In the video, an employee at the Valley Meat Company out of Roswell, NM – which is working with the USDA to get a horse slaughter plant in the area – brings a horse out of its pen, swears at activists and then kills the horse with a single gunshot.
“To all you animal activists, f**k you,” Tim Sappington, a maintenance contractor with Valley Meat Company, said in the video. He then shoots the horse point blank in the head. The horse falls to the ground and dies.
Sappington has received several death threats for the video. People who operate the plant, who contend they had nothing to do with the video, are also receiving threats. Now, the FBI is involved.
“You know what people should be slaughtering? You f***ing s***cs, should never have been allowed in this country,” one caller said. Rick De Los Santos, a part-owner of Valley Meat Company in Roswell, has been slammed with hate calls and death threats since a video hit the Web.
“I didn’t have anything to do with that video, that’s the honest truth, but like I said, people will make assumptions,” De Los Santos said. De Los Santos said Sappington shot the video on his own time and at his own home. The De Los Santos’ say people have also stolen “no trespassing” signs off their property.