Nonviolence Can Start on Our Plates, Says Group
For Immediate Release:
August
8, 2012
Contact:
Kaitlynn
Kelly 202-483-7382
Denver -- As debates over gun control and mental-health care sweep the nation in the wake of the July 20 shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., PETA is urging everyone to take the first step toward making the world less violent simply by choosing meat-free meals. To initiate this positive trend, PETA has sent a letter to Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson urging him to place James Holmes—who has been charged in the shooting deaths of 12 people and the wounding of 58 others—on an all-vegetarian diet for the remainder of his stay at the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office Detention Facility in Centennial.
"There are many forms of random, senseless violence that we can do nothing about—but each of us can help stop the routine slaughter of animals simply by not eating them," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "PETA is asking Sheriff Robinson to lead the way by placing James Holmes on a humane and cost-effective vegetarian diet, which will save lives and public funds."
PETA has offered to provide all Arapahoe County inmates with vegetarian meals for a full day at no cost to the county.
For more information, please visit PETA.org.
PETA’s letter to Arapaho County Sheriff Grayson Robinson follows
August 8, 2012
Sheriff Grayson Robinson
Arapahoe County
Dear Sheriff Robinson,
On behalf of PETA's more than 3 million members and supporters—including thousands across Colorado who were horrified by the carnage in Aurora—I am writing about suspected murderer James Holmes. With all due respect, we ask that you help make the world a less violent place by providing him with exclusively vegetarian meals while he is in your custody.
The senseless killings that Holmes is charged with carrying out have caused many of us to debate how gun control and mental-health care might help prevent future outbreaks of such violence. Although many acts of random and senseless violence occur that we can do nothing about, all of us can help stop the routine slaughter of animals—all we have to do is stop eating them. On factory farms, living, feeling beings—who experience pain and fear just as we do—are regularly castrated, debeaked, and dehorned without painkillers. They are transported to slaughterhouses in all weather extremes, with many collapsing from heat exhaustion in hot weather and some freezing to the sides of the trucks in cold weather. At the slaughterhouse, they are hung upside down, and their throats are slit, often while they are still conscious.
Nonviolence can start on our plates. There are other benefits, too: Vegetarian meals are easy to prepare and typically less expensive than meat-based meals. We would be happy to help you set up institutional meat-free meal plans and also to give, at no cost to Arapahoe County, vegetarian meals to all your inmates on a day of your choosing.
Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Very truly yours,
Ingrid E. Newkirk
President
PETA