Animal Liberation Front Delivers 4 Incendiary Devices to Nevada Primate Supplier

Animal rights activists say they set Reno fire

By SCOTT SONNER
The Associated Press

RENO, Nev.
May 27, 2009

Animal rights activists have claimed responsibility for a fire that gutted the
Reno business office of a company that ships monkeys from China for scientific
research in the United States and elsewhere.

Reno police and fire officials began investigating the arson claim by the
Animal Liberation Front after The Associated Press sought comment about an
e-mail the group circulated to media outlets and posted on a Web site.

"At this point we are looking at it as a lead," Reno police spokesman Steve
Frady said Wednesday. "There is evidence of arson. At this point there is no
physical evidence to link this with the group claiming responsibility," he
said.

No one was injured in the fire that broke out about 4 a.m. on May 18 and caused
an estimated $300,000 damage to offices of Scientific Resources International
Inc. just southwest of downtown Reno, Frady said.

The North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office, which posts messages
from groups taking credit for animal rights violence, said on its Web site
Tuesday that it received an "anonymous communique" last week indicating ALF was
claiming responsibility for the fire.

"In the early morning hours of May 18th, four incendiary devices were planted
at Scientific Resources International, a supplier of non-humyn (sic) primates
for use in vivisection labs all over northern Nevada," the message read. "The
concept of animals existing as `resources' is utterly despicable, and we vow to
do all in our power to run businesses like these into the ground."

Vivisection labs are used by scientists who experiment with animals, such as
for medical research.

Frady said the building is listed as a business office and didn't believe any
animals had been housed there. A man who answered the telephone listing for the
office said he was the manager but declined to give his name. He said the
building had been destroyed and would be unable to conduct business until it
was rebuilt.

The one-story home that housed the offices in a largely residential district
still smelled of smoke Wednesday. A sign identified it only as "SRI Inc." The
most badly charred parts of the building were by two front doors on a large
covered porch and in the rear of the building. Several holes have been boarded
up.

"We are hoping the public has information that will help us to thoroughly
investigate this case and determine who was responsible for setting this fire,"
Frady said. He said 33 firefighters were called to battle the blaze.

Frady said he wasn't aware of any other acts of violence involving ALF in the
Reno-Sparks area in recent years.

In 2007, a Canadian animal rights activist was sentenced to more than three
years in prison for helping a cell of the ALF set fire to federal wild horse
corrals at Litchfield, Calif., about 90 miles northwest of Reno. Darren Todd
Thurston, 37, had pleaded guilty to conspiracy and arson in the 2001 fire at
the U.S. Bureau of Land Management corrals.

Published: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 17:08 PDT

While, as someone who is not willing to take the risks of similar actions in any cause, I have no wish to criticize the folks who carried out these actions. However, two questions, perhaps rhetorical, come to mind:

1. How come vivisectionists and their suppliers are targeted but not the slaughterhouses and their suppliers that each cause a lot more animal suffering than the vivisectionists?
2. How come defenders of non-human animals are willing to take such actions, but no such actions are taken against such destructive entities as arms suppliers and polluters that massively kill both human and non-human animals as well as vegetable life?