Animal Rights Activists Stage Protest At Bills-Rams Game

John Simmons | September 9, 2022
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Things got crazy at the NFL’s season-opening game between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Rams on Thursday, and it wasn’t just Josh Allen torching a clearly overmatched Rams defense. 

During the 4th quarter of the Bills 31-10 rout of the defending Super Bowl champions, two animal rights activists blitzed the field with a device that emitted pink smoke. The two females, identified as Katia Shokrai and Emek Echo, are involved with Direct Action Everywhere, a group that makes a habit of staging elaborate protests at sporting events.

Shokari and Echo were trying to bring awareness and gain sympathy for the two plaintiffs in the Smithfield Trial, a court case in which two men claimed they rescued two piglets from a Smithfield Foods plant while also taking videos showing the living conditions of the animals at the plant. The defense is arguing that the plaintiffs are being prosecuted because they trespassed on private property and stole animals from the company.

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Most of the time, these people don’t have a strong case and it's hard to take them seriously. While the plaintiffs are right in that the animals could be living in poor conditions, they also trespassed on private property and stole a company’s product, which are obviously actions that usually don’t go unpunished. 

This appears to be yet another case of nutjobs looking for attention over a cause whose validity is questionable at best. Fortunately for Buffalo, the brief distraction did not inhibit their stampede over the home team.

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