The Chino slaughterhouse that triggered the nation's largest-ever beef recall regularly bought sick, crippled and emaciated cows and forced them to their feet so they could be slaughtered for food, said a former employee who worked 23 years at Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. Daniel Ugarte Navarro, a pen worker who awaits sentencing on animal cruelty convictions, agreed to an interview more than six months after a Humane Society investigator's undercover tapes showed collapsed cows dragged, repeatedly shocked, rammed with forklifts and illegally taken to slaughter at the plant. Ugarte, 49, of Pomona, said the candid footage seen worldwide on TV and the Internet depicted business as usual at Westland/Hallmark, which was a key beef supplier for the national school lunch program. Ugarte said that plant President Steve Mendell knew about and condoned the abuse and slaughter of "downer" cows, and that lower-level supervisors ordered workers to carry it out.
Read the story Press Enterprise | Posted September 13, 2008
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