Raucous Protesters Target Family

Mitchell Lardner didn’t pay much attention to an April 8 company memo alerting him and other employees of Sumitomo Corp. of America that they could be the targets of “home protests” from animal rights activists who believe the firm has ties to animal research.

This won’t affect him, Lardner reasoned. He’s just a mid-level manager, and he believed it when his company said it had no such links.

But two weeks later Lardner woke up to find that vandals had spray painted “Puppy Killer,” and “You Can’t Hide” on the walls of his historic Monrovia house, the former residence of novelist Upton Sinclair. Later that night a dozen masked protesters with bullhorns marched out front, yelling, “Mitchell Lardner kills 500 puppies a day!”

On Sunday night, about 25 protesters marched through Lardner’s neighborhood, but stayed a block away, and then walked through Old Town Monrovia shouting his address and carrying pictures of a bleeding dog. The Sunday evening protest is part of what they said is a long-term campaign against Lardner.

“It’s been weeks of anxiety and absolute fear,” said Lardner, whose wife and two small children have been propelled into what they call a surreal existence, saying they feel like virtual hostages in their home. They are under the watch of 24-hour security guards, live behind draped and papered windows, and are protected by a host of security devices.

“I couldn’t even make this up,” said Kathleen Lardner. “When I try and explain this to people I sound like a nut. It’s so bizarre.”

Her husband adds, “As a target for animal rights activists, I’m absolutely the wrong person.”

But the activists believe otherwise. They said that, denials or not, there is at least a tangential tie between animal research and Lardner’s employer, through a tangle of corporate entities in the United States and Japan.

And, they say, that’s reason enough to make Lardner -- whose California-based job is to find investors for high-tech start-ups -- a valuable target in their campaign. They picked Lardner because he has just the right combination of attention-grabbing requisites, said Emmeline Pankhurst, 25, a member of the Coalition to Help Animals Through Resistance and Mobilization, the group she said is behind the protests.

Lardner lives in a historic home that people don’t want vandalized. Monrovia residents pride themselves on their small-town activism and have turned out to confront protesters, calling police and turning the demonstrations into even bigger events. Nestled against the San Gabriel Mountains and easily accessible from the Foothill Freeway, the house is a convenient location for activists from Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The nighttime protests by masked pickets have so angered neighbors that they demanded City Hall do something to stop them. Earlier this month the City Council passed an ordinance regulating pickets in front of homes, a move that further fueled passions.

“When you go to someone’s office, it’s not personal ... but when you go to their home it’s personal and unbearable,” Pankhurst said. “This is a big ordeal in Monrovia.... It only increases the pressure on Mitch.”

Such home protests have gained in popularity around the country, and animal rights websites encourage the practice by publishing the names and addresses of employees who they believe work for companies that have ties to Huntingdon Life Sciences, a British-based firm that conducts animal research.

Last month seven members of an animal rights organization who aim to shut down a Huntingdon affiliate in New Jersey were charged in a federal indictment for allegedly conducting a campaign to “terrorize officers, employees and shareholders” of the company, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s office.

The group is known as SHAC, for Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, and operates a website that posted an article describing vandalism at the Lardner home: “Mitch’s house was repainted in red by anonymous activists to symbolize that he had been marked responsible for the death of countless animals.”

Other Protests

After nine months of similar demonstrations at his Santa Monica house, Los Angeles Animal Services General Manager Jerry Greenwalt, 63, announced in March that he was stepping down from his post, although he said his departure was not related to the protests. Among other things, vandals had spray painted “murderer” on his car to protest what they said were the unacceptable number of dog and cat deaths in animal shelters. The group also picketed in front of the San Pedro home of Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn.

The activists targeting Lardner hope that they will wear him down and that his neighbors will become so upset with the protests that he will quit his job or try to influence his company to sever the ties they say it has to animal research.

“If he had made a statement deploring what his company does, there would have not been protesters outside his house,” Prankhurst said. “It’s unfortunate he is living in fear, but the animals of Huntingdon Life Science live in significantly more fear. They don’t have 24-hour security guards. Unfortunately, we can’t be sympathetic.”

It’s this reasoning that frustrates Lardner, who has worked for Sumitomo since he graduated from UCLA in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and international finance.

“It’s all so preposterous,” Lardner said. “There is no way I can effect the change they want. They will perpetually demand that I do the impossible. They never asked me to make a statement or even addressed me personally through reasonable means.”

Sumitomo Corp. is one of Japan’s major trading and investment enterprises; it imports and exports goods including metals, machinery, electronics, chemicals, food and textiles. It is the parent company of Sumitomo Corp. of America. Lardner works for a subsidiary of Sumitomo’s American division, Presidio Venture Partners.

Kathleen Lardner grew up in Monrovia, met Mitchell at UCLA and had dreamed of owning the historic Sinclair House, a striking 1927 Spanish Colonial Revival with ornate wrought iron designs and woodwork. They bought it about 18 months ago from two Caltech professors.

Upton Sinclair, the novelist and social crusader best known for his book “The Jungle,” an expose of the meat-packing industry, lived in the house from 1942 until 1966. Virtually all his later works were written at the house, which was later declared a National Historic Landmark.

Although her experience with the protesters is “like I’m being stalked in my own home,” Kathleen Lardner said the family has been comforted by the support from their neighbors. Some neighbors brought them pies and potted plants.

“It was like a funeral, people didn’t know what to say, so they brought us food and said how sorry they were,” said Kathleen, who works at the preschool co-op one of her children attends.

Support for Lardners

Donna Baker, the real estate agent who sold them the house and a leader in the Monrovia Old House Preservation Group, found out about the Lardners’ predicament when they bowed out of the group’s annual home tour.

“Out of all the people in the world, Mitch Lardner is the most unlikely target,” Baker said. “They are gentle people. Mitch, a puppy killer? I mean, they rescued their own dog. It’s ridiculous.”

During the second protest, Baker and neighbors videotaped the activists shouting into the Lardner home and put spotlights in the Lardners’ frontyard to better observe the pickets. Baker and others then turned their attention to City Hall, where they supported the June 8 approval of an “urgency ordinance” regulating pickets in front of homes.

The law states that those who picket near a house and harass and intimidate the occupants are not entitled to a “high level of First Amendment protection,” because it is unreasonably offensive and intrusive to the right of privacy in one’s home.

A similar Wisconsin law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1988 in connection with antiabortion protests in front of the home of a doctor. Many cities adopted similar laws afterward, mainly in reaction to antiabortion pickets.

Monrovia City Atty. Craig Steele said that although the law is not novel, adopting it in response to animal rights protests is. The Monrovia law calls for pickets to remain 300 feet from a residence and prohibits them from shouting into a particular home. Violators can be charged with a misdemeanor. The ordinance states that the City Council does not intend to stifle any speech protected by the First Amendment.

Andrea Lindsay, a spokesperson with SHAC, said, “It’s a shame that the First Amendment is being thrown out the window to accommodate one individual.”

At Sunday’s protest, the first since the ordinance was passed, activists said they came no closer than a block from his house because they didn’t want to be arrested for breaking the new law. “His neighbors already know who we are,” said Prankhurst, a UCLA law student. “Now it’s time to let the rest of Monrovia know.”

Baker, who described herself as an animal advocate who once demonstrated in front of the Federal Building in Westwood against the clubbing of baby seals, said she was conflicted over pushing for the new law: “But these activists are not at the right place.”

Penny Zuck, a neighbor and friend of the Lardners, describes her support this way: “This shows that any group can target anybody. Can you imagine if this happened at your house?”