65-year-old woman killed while protesting outside abattoir
Witnesses say Regan Russell was struck by a truck while giving water to pigs outside Fearmans slaughterhouse
This time, it was thirsty pigs crammed into a hot transport truck.
But it could have just as easily been whales at Marineland or sled dogs in northern Quebec.
All life was “worth fighting for” to Regan Russell, say grieving friends and family after the longtime activist died under a truck at a protest outside a Burlington slaughterhouse.
The 65-year-old Hamilton woman was killed after being struck by a transport truck outside Fearmans Pork at Appleby Line and Harvester Road on Friday. Halton police were still investigating Friday evening and no charges had been laid.
But witnesses said Russell had been giving water to pigs inside the trailer of a truck entering the slaughterhouse shortly before she was struck. Video posted by Toronto Pig Save online shows several activists doing the same.
Her life partner of 19 years, Mark Powell, said Friday he does not know how Russell ended up under the truck. But he understands why his “tall, beautiful, passionate” best
friend was willing to risk the race to give water to “suffering” pigs inside the trucks, which pause briefly before driving into the slaughterhouse.
“She died fighting for what she believed in,” said Powell, fighting to keep his voice from trembling at his home. “Whatever it cost, she would pay ... Sometimes it’s money. Sometimes, it’s this.”
Russell was a “kind, elegant, strong and courageous person” who routinely joined the protests outside the slaughterhouse, said Anita Krajnc, the founder of the Animal Save Movement who was charged but later acquitted of mischief related to giving water to pigs in a truck several years ago.
New government legislation will soon make it illegal to “interfere” with animals in transport or take protests onto farms — a bill that outraged Russell and prompted her last Facebook post labelling the law “evil.”
Russell’s passion for social justice was not restricted to pigs, noted Powell. She marched at the latest Black Lives Matter event in Hamilton.
She helped rally a crowd of outraged residents to disrupt now-convicted sex assaulter Bill Cosby’s 2015 performance in Hamilton.
Friend Donna Caprice described her tall, beautiful friend as “fearless” and intelligent. “She was always willing to go out on a limb, for the animals, for the people she loved.”
That may be why Russell was arrested on 11 occasions for “various acts of civil disobedience” over several decades, said a chuckling Powell, who added his life partner took a “covert” trip to Quebec just weeks ago to investigate reported abuse in the sled dog industry.
That’s why he sometimes strategically stayed out of the fray. “I was the bail money,” he said.
Her mother, Pat Russell, said she was sometimes uneasy about — but always proud — of her daughter’s passion for protest. “I mostly worried she would be arrested,” admitted the grieving 90year-old. “But animals were her life.”
Friends said Russell memorably articulated her social justice motto for everyone to hear in a 2012 documentary about Marineland.
The camera catches up to Russell — later joined by her dad — after they joined anti-zoo protesters “storming” the fences of the controversial aquatic amusement park.
“People say we’re breaking the law by storming? How do you think women got the right (to vote)? How do you think slavery was abolished?” Russell asked rhetorically without breaking stride. “People stood up and broke the laws — because they’re stupid laws.”
Animal welfare activists planning a vigil for Russell warned the government not to use her death as an excuse to crack down further on protest activity.
Online, commenters exchanged heated arguments about the protest and who was to blame for Russell’s death.
Powell said he views the death as an accident. “We can’t let the cause she was fighting for become lost in a fog of outrage,” he said. “Keep fighting the fight, but don’t be angry. Get the word out.”