Police Caution Veterinary College Deans

Police have issued a nationwide alert that animal rights extremists may have shot and killed a veterinary college dean and intend to kill “one dean a month for the next 12 months,” authorities said Saturday.

Sheriff’s deputies stressed that they issued the alert only as a precaution, based on unconfirmed information. But they also said they had called the FBI into the investigation of the ambush-slaying of Hyram Kitchen, dean of the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine.

The alert, placed on the National Crime Information Center computer, warned that a militant underground animal rights faction might be responsible for killing Kitchen on Feb. 8.

It also said investigators have obtained reports that animal rights extremists have threatened to kill veterinary college deans around the country at the rate of “one dean a month for the next 12 months” to protest laboratory research on animals.

The alert, issued last week and obtained by United Press International, said that Kitchen “had been very moderate in his dealings with the animal rights groups.”

“However, our investigation to this point has turned up no other motives for his death,” it said.

Kitchen, 57, was shot eight times with a .22-caliber handgun as he left his horse farm, officials said.

A neighbor reported hearing conversations outside Kitchen’s home, then hearing gunshots and seeing someone run through a field behind the house. Robbery was ruled out as a motive because nothing was taken.

Officials said the alert was intended for police with veterinary colleges in their districts. Terry Curtin, dean of the North Carolina State University veterinary school at Raleigh, said police told him of the alert.

The dean of the Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine said Saturday that he has talked with police about the reported threats against veterinary deans, but he would not disclose what was discussed.

Knox County sheriff’s Lt. Larry Johnson said investigators based the alert on threatening mail to the University of Tennessee and on conversations with colleagues of Kitchen about threats they had received.