Rogue calf ’s public slaughter stirs bad blood
BLOOMFIELD, Conn. — The slaughter in a Home Depot parking lot of a calf that escaped a butcher shop and led employees on a chase has sparked outrage by animal lovers and elicited racist messages online.
The calf broke out of the Saba Live Poultry store in Bloomfield, Connecticut, on July 13 and ran behind the store across the street. A contractor doing construction work on the butcher shop even tried to shoot the animal with a bow and arrow.
Dashboard camera footage from a Bloomfield Police officer who briefly followed the animal by car shows it eluding several people who tried to corral it.
When employees of the butcher shop finally wrestled the calf to the ground, Badr Musaed, who works in the shop, cut its throat.
Bilal Musid, the manager of the halal butcher shop, apologized for the killing but said his employees feared the animal would cause serious injury to someone if not stopped.
“It was kind of even attacking employees,” he said, explaining why his colleague went to such extremes to end the chase.
Animal activists are decrying the public slaughter. That the butcher shop was halal — which means it slaughters animals using knives in accordance with Islamic dietary laws — has led to a stream of racist comments posted on webpages associated with the store.
Musid said he understands the public reaction to the killing.
“I understand their anger, but I didn’t want this to happen either,” he said.
He bemoaned that some are expressing that anger by making anti-Muslim remarks. The shop’s Facebook page has been temporarily disabled and reviews on its Yelp page suspended because of the media attention and the ensuing hateful comments.