The Death Cult of PETA's Ingrid Newkirk

Last year PETA took in over $51 million dollars in donations and killed 98% of the dogs that came through their "shelter," with only 1% adopted out from PETA and 1% placed with other groups.

Though it markets itself as a "humane" organization, PETA is actually a massive direct mail mill operation that uses gullible young adults to do stunts for media attention, even as its national headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, operates like a death cult, run by narcissistic sociopath Ingrid Newkirk.

PETA is such a death cult that it, literally, sends staff out to take dogs and cats from REAL rescue shelters to kill them, and has gone so far as to actually steal pets off of people's porches in order to rush them to death in their kill van.  

And YES there is video tape of this happening, and the facts are NOT contested.



The latest news from The Huffington Post is that a whistleblower has come forward to describe, in detail, how PETA operates, and how Ingrid Newkirk herself treats those with a genuine concern about animal welfare:

A woman employed by PETA fifteen years ago is now alleging that she was encouraged by its president, Ingrid Newkirk, to steal and kill pets, and to falsify records.

Heather Harper-Troje is the wife of a US diplomat serving at the American embassy in Honduras, and her eyewitness account is unprecedented. For three years I have investigated People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' regular slaughter of dogs and cats at their headquarters in Norfolk, but I have never encountered first-person testimony of this nature. According to Harper-Troje, Ingrid Newkirk authorized her staff to steal pets -- animals that were then killed, immediately -- and records of killing were routinely doctored. Ms. Harper-Troje is an exceptionally brave woman -- she is willing to go on the record and use her real name. She will be eviscerated.

Some of this is told in a blog post, which I quote here at length but urge you to read in its entirety: "Rescued by Black Boy: how a neglected dog set me back on my path, away from PETA." The extent to which PETA has stolen animals and falsified documents, however, is not revealed there. My own conversations with Ms. Harper-Troje have gone into considerably more detail.

Note that the following is the testimony of one woman, and must be considered merely allegation until substantiated. Heather Harper-Troje is hardly a disreputable citizen, however: She's married to a Foreign Service Officer -- the chief of the public diplomacy section at the American embassy in Honduras -- and she has told me that she would be willing to testify to the following in court, under oath. I contacted PETA earlier today to request a comment, and have not yet heard back. I will provide updates here should they respond.

These are allegations of crimes committed fifteen years ago, and the statute of limitations has long expired. The claims have become urgently relevant, however, as PETA is increasingly embroiled in a scandal involving the theft and killing of a little girl's dog....

...I remember one day bringing a tiny white dog into Ingrid's office, to tell her I wanted to adopt her out, not euthanize her. She rolled her eyes and asked why that dog was any more worthy than any of the countless other animals in shelters waiting for a home. I told her she was an adoptable dog: small, social, sweet; could be placed with very little trouble. After sarcastically berating me, with a smile on her face, she turned to a man in her office and asked what he thought. He said she was very cute. She sighed and said something along the lines of, "fine, do what you want." So I found her a home....

I had to fight hard for each adoption and, increasingly, I encountered great resistance. I heard phrases like "a waste of resources" and "not adoptable" -- my desire to save each animal was belittled as naive and trivial. I was told that I was missing the bigger picture....

What was referred to as the "shelter" was a large, empty storage closet across from our office. The only other holding facility we had was in the warehouse, where the animals were euthanized. And when I did use the room across from my office as a holding area for animals, Ingrid would ask why I hadn't already euthanized them: one time nailing me to the wall because the litter of puppies I'd placed in there for a night had pooped everywhere; I was told to euthanize the puppies immediately. Needless to say, Ingrid refused our request for a shelter: waste of resources, not the aim of the program, animals beyond hope, same old, same old....

This is the first time I've come out and said how Ingrid ran the unit, and encouraged us to break the law, lie, etc. Pheno B, as you know, is a controlled substance, and we used ketamine to sedate when needed. I was under direct orders from her to doctor logs, in order to compensate for what would have otherwise been missing pheno and ketamine.

I know from first hand experience that the PETA leadership has no problem lying. I was told regularly to not enter animals into the log, or to euthanize off-site in order to prevent animals from even entering the building. I was told regularly to greatly overestimate the weight of animals whose euthanasia we recorded, in order to account for what would have otherwise been missing "blue juice" (the chemical used to euthanize); because that allowed us to euthanize animals off the books. I was told regularly to say whatever I had to say in order to get people to surrender animals to me: lying was not only acceptable, it was encouraged.

The charges here are serious, and go beyond stealing dogs (documented and acknowledged) and the mass-killing of dogs and cats under the guise of being a rescue (documented and acknowledged). The long term altering of medical records in order to divert lethal drugs for illegal purposes may rise to a federal charge, especially when done in conjunction with interstate commerce, as it was here. It is certainly a serious violation of Virginia state law, and one more reason the state needs to move NOW to close PETA's "shelter" in Norfolk.

This is a death cult, that lies, steals and kills. For the state to license it or sanction its conduct is outrageous.