Complaint targets Ohio State Highway Patrol misconduct at scene of piglet truck accident
March 12, 2024
Animal Partisan has filed an internal affairs complaint against two members of the Ohio State Highway Patrol for misconduct during the agency’s response to an accident involving a truck carrying 1,900 piglets to Iowa. The complaint arises from public records obtained exclusively by Animal Partisan and alleges that one trooper prohibited local news media from filming graphic images of dead or injured piglets at the request of a pork industry representative who feared backlash from animal rights activists. The complaint further alleges that another trooper struck and prodded piglets with a metal baton and threw others onto the concrete as he violently herded them back to the downed trailer. Animal Partisan is urging the Ohio State Highway Patrol to discipline the troopers involved, enact remedial training and procedures, and issue a public statement on the incident.
On November 17, 2023, a tractor trailer carrying 1,900 piglets destined for Iowa, one of the nation’s largest pork producing states, overturned on the interstate outside of Dayton, Ohio. As a result of the accident, hundreds of terrified piglets escaped the trailer and roamed the highway. Many more were trapped inside the trailer and others were killed when they were ejected from the vehicle over the side of the highway overpass. Scores of first responders arrived at the scene, including firefighters, workers from the Ohio Department of Transportation, local police officers, and troopers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. Assisted by some motorists, the first responders herded the frightened piglets back toward the trailer in an attempt to contain them.
Hours of body cam and dash cam videos obtained by Animal Partisan using the Ohio Open Records Law paint a fuller picture of the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s actions during the response and paint a troubling picture of open hostility toward animal rights activists and violent abuse of vulnerable, frightened piglets.
In one scene in the videos, a representative from the pork industry approaches an Ohio State Highway Patrol sergeant and asks if he the news media can be prevented from filming the removal of dead or injured piglets from the truck because of concerns with “animal rights people.” The sergeant willingly obliges and approaches several members of local news media gathered with their cameras focused on the downed trailer. The sergeant then prohibits the local media from filming the bodies of injured or dead piglets being removed from the truck because of “issues with animal rights.”
Sergeant: “I know you guys are out here and I have no problem with you being out here. But, with them dealing with the livestock the way they are, you know, I mean, it’s part of their business, it’s the way they handle them. There just can . . . sometimes there can be some issues with animal rights and things like that. Does that make sense?”
Photographer 1: (Nods)
Photographer 2: (Nods)
Sergeant: “So, its fine that you’re up here, but maybe not zoom in so much on them actually taking the ones out. Because we’re going to get to the place . . . there’s going to be dead ones in this trailer. Ok, I was just trying to forewarn you so that way, you know, it doesn’t backfire on all of us, I guess is what I’m saying.”
Later in the videos, the same sergeant jokes about the bodies of several piglets who were thrown from the truck during the accident off the highway overpass and plummeted dozens of feet to their deaths:
Sergeant: “How quick can we get those on the smoker?”
Elsewhere in the videos, another trooper violently herds piglets toward the downed trailer. The trooper strikes piglets with a metal baton, prods them, and flings them through the air onto the concrete. Despite a warning from a fellow trooper and the presence of other first responders who calmly and gently guide the piglets down the highway, the abuse continues for many minutes.
Trooper standing nearby: “Don’t poke ‘em like that.”
Trooper violently herding piglets: “Hey, I been to the State Fair enough to know what they do with ‘em.”
Animal Partisan’s complaint is directed to the Administrative Investigations Unit of the Ohio State Highway Patrol and urges the agency to conduct an investigation, discipline the troopers involved, and issue a statement regarding the misconduct. The complaint alleges that the sergeant violated the First Amendment of the Constitution by suppressing viewpoints sympathetic to animal rights in favor of viewpoints favoring the pork industry. The complaint further alleges that the trooper who violently herded the pigs violated Ohio’s animal cruelty law and asks the Ohio State Highway Patrol to refer the matter to an independent law enforcement agency to evaluate for potential prosecution.
View a copy of the complaint HERE.
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