9-year-old California girl wanted to save her goat from slaughter. Then came the search warrant

[David Fritz]

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article273127820.html

The 15-page search warrant and affidavit were very specific about the
target Shasta County sheriff’s officials were after.

“The location is a single family residence in a rural residential area,”
the warrant, signed at 6:33 p.m. on July 8 by Shasta County Superior Court
Judge Monique McKee, read. “The property has a tan colored residence with
a brown composite style roof.”

The document was accompanied by ground-level and aerial photos of the
property, along with a street address in Napa and the notation that the
subject of the search warrant had been “stolen or embezzled.”

Officers were permitted to “utilize breaching equipment to force open
doorway(s), entry doors, exit doors, and locked containers in pursuit of
their target,” the warrant said, then listed areas that might be searched.

“The residence, including all rooms, attics, basements, and other parts
therein, the surrounding grounds and any garages, sheds, storage rooms,
and outbuildings of any kind large enough to accommodate a small goat,”
the warrant said.

Thus began the legal saga of Cedar the goat, a 7-month-old white Boer goat
with chocolate markings framing its face who is now the subject of a
federal civil rights lawsuit naming Shasta sheriff’s officials, Shasta
County, the Shasta District Fair and other defendants who are accused of
involvement in the apparent slaughter of Cedar for a community barbecue.

The details of Cedar’s short life are spelled out in the lawsuit,
originally filed in August and amended in March, as well as court
documents, emails and other records obtained by The Sacramento Bee through
California Public Records Act requests.

The records show the lengths to which officials went to retrieve the goat,
turning to law enforcement rather than using a civil court action to
decide the matter, say attorneys Ryan Gordon and Vanessa Shakib, who co-
founded the non-profit Advancing Law for Animals law firm.

They are representing Jessica Long, whose daughter raised Cedar. “Looking
at this case, what we see is county and fair officials improperly used
their authority and connections to transform a purely civil dispute into a
sham criminal matter,” Shakib said.

Cedar had been purchased in April 2022 by Long for her 9-year-old
daughter, who fed and cared for the goat every day, eventually bonding
with the animal. “She loved him as a family pet,” the lawsuit says.

The family entered Cedar into the Shasta District Fair’s junior livestock
auction on June 24, 2022, the suit says, an event in which animals entered
for auction are part of a “terminal sale” in which they are sold off to be
used as meat – “no exceptions,” a fair brochure says.

But before bidding began the Long family changed their minds and tried to
back out before Cedar was auctioned off, something fair officials said was
not allowed.

Fair officials declined comment when the lawsuit was filed and did not
respond to a request for comment Friday. Officials with the California
Department of Food and Agriculture, which oversees county fair and
exposition districts, also declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

The goat was sold on June 25 to a representative of state Sen. Brian Dahle
for $902, with $63.14 going to the fair and $838.86 meant to go to Cedar’s
owner, who by then was sobbing in the goat’s pen and telling her mother
that she did not want her pet goat slaughtered, the lawsuit says.

That night, the last day of the fair, as Long’s daughter was saying
goodbye to Cedar, Long decided to act. “It was heartbreaking...,” Long
wrote in a June 27 email to the Shasta District Fair.

“The barn was mostly empty and at the last minute I decided to break the
rules and take the goat that night and deal with the consequences later,”
her email read. “I knew when I took it that my next steps were to make it
right with the buyer and the fairgrounds.”

Long wrote that she had communicated with Dahle’s office, which did not
object to the goat being saved from slaughter. “I will pay you back for
the goat and any other expenses I caused,” Long wrote.

“I would like to ask for your support in finding a solution.” But the
solution offered by the fair and the California Department of Food and
Agriculture was simply for Long to return Cedar.

“As a mother I am not unsympathetic regarding your daughter and her love
for her animal,” Shasta District Fair Chief Executive Officer Melanie
Silva emailed Long the next day.

“Having said that please understand the fair industry is set up to teach
our youth responsibility and for the future generations of ranchers and
farmers to learn the process and effort it takes to raise quality meat.

“Making an exception for you will only teach out youth that they do not
have to abide by the rules that are set up for all participants.” Silva
added that CDFA had informed her that “for the good of all we have to
stick to the State Rules.”

“Unfortunately, this is out of my hands...,” she wrote, adding, “You will
need to bring the goat back to the Shasta District Fair immediately.”
Silva sent another email the next day to a CDFA official, informing him
that an organizer of the community barbecue “has contacted her lawyers
regarding the theft of the goat donated to the bbq.”

By then, the livestock manager at the Shasta District Fair had begun
texting Long on her cell phone warning of serious consequences if she did
not turn over Cedar, according to copies of the texts provided by Long’s
attorney.

“We need to make arrangements to get goat back today,” a June 28 text from
B.J. Mcfarlane read. “If not law enforcement is going to be brought in on
this.”

“The fair has instructed me to contact you to get the goat to the
fairgrounds by 10 am Wednesday June 29,” another text read. “If this does
not happen they will be forced to contact authorities.”

Mcfarlane did not respond to a request for comment, but the lawsuit says
he also had called Long the day after the goat was taken and threatened to
have her charged with a felony count of grand theft if she did not return
Cedar.

“The live stock manager has been in contact with me and is threatening to
have me arrested for a felony of stealing livestock unless I return the
goat for slaughter immediately,” Long wrote in her email to the fair CEO.

Silva also raised the notion of contacting law enforcement, writing in a
June 29 email to CDFA, “Should we involve CHP next?” Written records
released by CDFA to The Bee do not reflect how law enforcement came to be
involved, but two weeks after the goat was taken Shasta sheriff’s
Detective Jeremy Ashbee filed a search warrant affidavit seeking
permission to seize it.

The search warrant targeted the Bleating Hearts Farm and Sanctuary, a non-
profit rescue group in Napa, and included the detailed description of the
property and the goat. By then, Shasta County sheriff’s Lt. Jerry
Fernandez and Detective Jacob Duncan were already on their way to the
sanctuary, having stopped in Arbuckle at a truck stop to purchase $95.64
in gas at 6 p.m., according to records released to The Bee by Shasta
sheriff’s officials.

That gas purchase was $32.50 more than the fair district would have
received as its share of the auction proceeds for Cedar, money the lawsuit
says Long offered to repay to the fair.

Public records do not describe what happened once they arrived at Bleating
Hearts, and the operators of the sanctuary did not respond to a request
for comment. But the lawsuit filed by Long says the goat was never at
Bleating Hearts.

Officials may have believed Cedar was there because of an Instagram post
on the Bleating Hearts account urging people to call or email the Shasta
District Fair to “pardon” to goat from slaughter.

“HE IS DUE TO BE KILLED TOMORROW,” THE POST READ. “HIS FAMILY IS WILLING
TO DO ANYTHING TO KEEP HIM SAFE FOR THEIR DAUGHTER.”

The fair’s CEO, Silva, made an apparent reference to that post in her
email to Long demanding return of the goat, writing that “in this era of
social media this has been a negative experience for the fairgrounds as
this has been all over Facebook and Instagram, not the best way to teach
our youth the value of responsibility.”

Instead of Bleating Hearts, Cedar was being kept at an unnamed Sonoma
County farm Long had emailed seeking help. “It was a farm to donate my
daughter’s goat to where he would clear land for fire prevention,” Long
wrote in her email to the fair. “

The farmer has contracts with CalFire, elementary schools, and other
important agencies. “This resonated strongly with us as a beautiful
solution since we moved here shortly before the Carr Fire and almost lost
our home to it.”

The lawsuit says that after Fernandez and Duncan discovered the goat was
not at Bleating Hearts, they made their way to the Sonoma County farm to
take Cedar into custody even though they “had no warrant to search and
seize Cedar at the Sonoma Farm.”

The sheriff’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit, but in a court
filing Thursday denied most of the claims and said no warrant was needed
at the Sonoma farm. “Defendants assert that no warrant was necessary to
retrieve Cedar at the Sonoma Farm as they had consent from the property
owner to retrieve the goat,” the filing says.

The two deputies and Cedar then drove more than 200 miles back to Shasta
County, stopping again in Arbuckle for another $94.95 in gas, records
show. From there, the goat was delivered to unnamed individuals at the
fair “for slaughter/destruction” even though the warrant required them to
hold the goat for a court hearing to determine its lawful owner, the
lawsuit says.

What precisely happened to Cedar – and whether he ended up on plates at
the community barbecue – remains unclear, Long’s attorneys say. “At this
time we don’t have that specific information and we can only speculate,”
Shakib said. “While it hasn’t been confirmed as a factual matter, we
believe the goat Cedar has been killed.”

Despite that, Cedar’s memory lives on in the form of an online petition
“to let the Shasta Fair Association and the Shasta County Sheriff’s
deputies reportedly involved in this case know that you denounce the cruel
slaughter of Cedar and that you’d like to see a more compassionate
response in any similar situations.”

By late March, the petition reported collecting 35,796 signatures. The
lawsuit, which asks for actual, general and punitive damages, also seeks
an order preventing Mcfarlane, Silva or others from discriminating against
the girl’s “free expression or viewpoint with respect to livestock in
future livestock activities.”

And it asks that Long’s daughter have the ability to participate in future
auctions at the fair, but with a clear understanding of her rights to
“disaffirm any contract or obligation to sell any livestock she owns
through such an auction.”