Animal Rights Group Claims, Denies Attack

A militant animal rights group claimed, then denied responsibility early Sunday for splattering blood-red paint on the home and car of Los Angeles County’s top animal control official as a warning that such attacks will continue if the county does not abandon its policy of selling impounded animals for medical research.

Vandals attacked the home of Brian Berger, director of the Animal Control and Care Department, shortly after 2 a.m., splattering red paint over Berger’s Porsche and scrawling the letters “ALF” across the front of his house in Arcadia.

A woman who identified herself as a member of the Animal Liberation Front, a nationwide clandestine organization that has raided several animal research facilities in the last three years, called a local news service after the attack and said it was a warning to the county to stop selling impounded animals to local hospitals for medical research.

Involvement Denied

By Sunday afternoon, however, a woman who identified herself as Sydney called the Los Angeles Times and said the ALF had nothing to do with the attack.

“We are not affiliated with the raid on Brian Berger’s house,” she said. “We do not attack personal property.”

Berger said he had received a threatening phone call from the organization about six weeks ago, “but I kind of dismissed it. I thought maybe it was just somebody venting their frustration.”

The woman who identified herself as Sydney said she did not know whether anyone from her organization had made threatening phone calls to Berger.

Of the 100,000 animals that pass through the county’s six shelters each year, about 1,500 are sold for research, Berger said.

No Pets Sold

“If an animal shows any tendencies at all of being someone’s pet, we say no to animal research,” Berger said. “Basically, that means if it has any kind of collar at all, if it even sits up and begs, we won’t sell it.”

Arcadia police said they are investigating the raid as an act of felony vandalism because damage is estimated at more than $1,000.

The most recent raid by the ALF was at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte in December, when more than 100 animals used in medical research were stolen. A week later, police in the Napa Valley city of Calistoga arrested a 32-year-old man and seized 10 rabbits believed to have been taken in the raid.