Culture Clash or Animal Cruelty? : Two Cambodian Refugees Face Trial After Killing Dog for Food

These are the facts on which everyone agrees:

Late last June, Sokheng Chea, 32, and Seng Ou, 33, both Cambodian refugees, decided to eat a 4-month-old German Shepherd puppy that a co-worker had given them as a pet. Holding the dog down on the kitchen floor of Ou’s Long Beach apartment, they hit it over the head with a blunt instrument, slashed its throat and began skinning it.

That is when the police arrived. Alerted by a neighbor who had heard the dog’s yelps, they arrested the two men. And last week, Chea and Ou went on trial at Long Beach Municipal Court for misdemeanor cruelty to animals, an offense that carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

Disagreement on Legality

The only disagreement is over whether what they did is illegal.

The prosecution contends that the killing was a crime because it was carried out in an unnecessarily cruel way.

The defense counters that the dog was killed humanely in a manner consistent with contemporary slaughterhouse practices, and that the two recent immigrants were following their own national customs with no idea that they were offending American sensibilities.

Underlying everything, the lawyers agree, is a resounding clash of cultural values and a basic question: Just how much is America willing to bend to accommodate the new wave of immigrants who are daily arriving on its shores?

“If the dog had been some other kind of animal--like a chicken or a duck or a pig--these people wouldn’t be in court,” said Joe Beason, an attorney representing Chea. “While (Americans) consider it completely acceptable to go out and shoot a deer, those same hunters would disapprove of killing a dog for food.”

Countered Sarah Lazarus, the prosecutor in the case: “We intend to prove that this was cruelty. It’s cultural to the extent that each segment of our society has its own cultural customs, but some of (those customs) can be woven into the fabric of our society and others cannot.”

The court proceedings have been closely monitored by animal-rights activists. “We do not accept these things in our society, and we would hope that the court will deal with (these men) with the appropriate severity,” said Jerye Mooney, coordinator of the Fund for Animals, a national organization based in Torrance that is pushing for legislation to specifically prohibit the killing of dogs and cats for human consumption.

Similar legislation, inspired by reports that Southeast Asian refugees had been foraging for stray dogs and other animals in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, was defeated by an Assembly committee in 1981.

“I would like to see these other cultures contained,” said Sabina Hubbard, chairwoman of the Orange County chapter of the Pet Assistance Foundation. “We don’t want these (practices) to spread.”

Considered Delicacies

Neither Chea, a custodian, nor Ou, who is unemployed, will comment until the case is resolved.

According to local Asian leaders, dogs and cats are considered delicacies in some Southeast Asian countries.

Two years ago, officials of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reported an increase in the number of dogs and cats being killed for food in Los Angeles County, a trend they attributed to the influx of Southeast Asian refugees.

But Lazarus said that, to her knowledge, this is the first incident in which enough evidence existed to bring the matter to court.

The trial--which has already resulted in at least one death threat against the defendants--has raised the hackles of some local Southeast Asian leaders who fear that the publicity may result in anti-Asian bias. “I am very concerned,” said Vora H. Kanthoul, associate executive director of the United Cambodian Community, a social service agency based in Long Beach.

While the eating of dogs is not uncommon in such countries as Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam, he said, it was highly unusual in Cambodia until the 1970s, when people there were near starvation during the regime of Pol Pot, a brutal Communist dictator. “During the war, a lot of things happened and they ate anything to survive,” Kanthoul said. “It’s unfortunate that (these men) were caught because it’s blown everything out of proportion.”

Responding to a pretrial motion last week, Judge Bradford L. Andrews ruled that killing a dog for food is not in itself a violation of the law. To win its case, therefore, he said, the prosecution must prove that the dog was “maimed, wounded, tortured, mutilated or tormented” in a manner beyond that required to prepare it as food.

Lazarus said that as the trial progresses, she intends to produce an eyewitness and a veterinarian who will testify that the dog was killed with unnecessary cruelty.

Beason says he has an autopsy report indicating that the killing was done in a manner consistent with livestock slaughter techniques and that there is no direct evidence of inhumane treatment.

As for the cultural issue, both say it will ultimately have to be resolved out of court. “When you bring someone into this country, you take the whole person,” Beason said. “You don’t just extract them from their culture, you bring the culture with them.”