Last April, Jessica Long’s family bought a 4-month-old goat and took it to their Shasta County, California, home, where Long’s young daughter named it Cedar, feeding and caring for it and bonding with it as she “would have bonded with a puppy.”
“She loved him as a family pet,” court papers say.
The little girl was enrolled in the local 4-H chapter youth program, and in June she took Cedar, a white goat with chocolate markings framing its face, to be exhibited at the Shasta District Fair livestock auction.
Before the auction began, the family asked to back out but fair officials refused, saying fair rules prohibited that and put the goat up for auction, where a representative for state Sen. Brian Dahle, also the Republican candidate for governor, bid $902 for Cedar’s meat.
“After the auction, (the girl) would not leave Cedar’s side,” according to a federal lawsuit filed last Wednesday by the girl’s family in Sacramento over the ordeal.
She “loved Cedar and the thought of him going to slaughter was something she could not bear,” the suit says. “While sobbing in his pen beside him, (she) communicated to her mother she didn’t want Cedar to go to slaughter.”
So, before Cedar could be killed, the girl “exercised her statutory rights” as a minor to reject any contract she may have had with the fair, the suit says, and her mother took Cedar from the fair and told fair officials “in no uncertain terms” that she would pay for any losses from the decision to spare Cedar.
The goat ended up at a farm in Sonoma County because of concern over how saving Cedar might “be a point of controversy” in the neighborhood, the suit says.
“Plaintiffs live in an agricultural community, and feared that deviating from a 4-H program through resisting the slaughter of livestock would upset other 4-H members and community members,” the suit says.
But Sonoma County wasn’t far enough away.
The fair’s livestock director, B.J. Macfarlane, called Long and threatened her with a grand theft charge if Cedar was not returned. Long became desperate, the suit says, offering to cover any losses and reaching out to Dahle’s office for help.
“In response to Plaintiff Long’s inquiry, Sen. Dahle’s representatives informed her that he would not resist her efforts to save Cedar from slaughter,” the suit says, adding that Long sent the fair a letter “in an effort to get them to understand, as human beings,” her position that her daughter was heartbroken and did not want Cedar killed.
“Our daughter lost three grandparents within the last year and our family has had so much heartbreak and sadness that I couldn’t bear the thought of the following weeks of sadness after the slaughter,” the letter said, according to the suit.
Shasta sheriff’s deputies sent for goat
Despite Long’s efforts, fair officials and Macfarlane, who did not respond to requests for comment last week, continued their efforts to have Cedar returned and eventually involved the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, the lawsuit says.
“Two sheriff’s deputies left their jurisdiction in Shasta County, drove over 500 miles at taxpayer expense, and crossed approximately six separate county lines, all to confiscate a young girl’s beloved pet goat, Cedar, after she decided not to auction him for slaughter,” the suit says. “Cedar was her property and she had every legal right to save his life.”
The Sheriff’s Office declined to comment last week on pending litigation, and the lawsuit says the upshot is that Cedar was slaughtered.
“As a result, the young girl who raised Cedar lost him, and Cedar lost his life,” the suit says. “Now plaintiffs can never get him back.”
“She was pretty upset when I told her,” Jessica Long said in an interview. “She cried the whole night.
“When she thinks about him she’s upset. She says, ‘They don’t know how mean they are,’ and she asks why they did that.”
Money raised at junior livestock auction
The lawsuit does not name the girl, and Long’s attorney, Ryan Gordon of Advancing Law for Animals in Redondo Beach, said she is under 10.
The fair website shows an 82-pound goat matching the description from the lawsuit sold for $11 a pound, or $902.
“The high bid for Cedar’s meat was $902, far over market rate, as bidders typically overpay for meat at such auctions because it means more money to the child exhibitor,” the suit says. “Of that amount, the Shasta Fair Association was only entitled to $63.14, and was to pay the remaining $838.86 to (Cedar’s owner).”
The fair’s website describes the process that leads to the auctioning of animals and says that last year it raised $2.3 million.
“The Junior Livestock Auction is the backbone to the Shasta District Fair as members from the Superior Agriculture District 4-H and Future Farmers of America enter and show the animals,” the site says. “The kids are recognized for their hard work and awarded placement ribbons and their prospective local livestock education programs are noted.
“The animals are then auctioned off at the Shasta District Fair Junior Livestock Auction and sold to the highest bidder.”
The junior livestock auction brochure, which touts the event as “Sunshine, Smiles and YOU,” also leaves little doubt about the final destination for animals, listing 530 animals for sale and pegging meat processing charges for goats as $95 per animal.
“All goats, hogs, lambs and steers sold at the Shasta District Fair must be loaded onto the trucks hired by Shasta District fair and sent to their proper destination,” the brochure says. “This is a terminal sale — no exceptions!”
But the lawsuit, which names sheriff’s Lt. Jerry Fernandez and detectives Jacob Duncan and Jeremy Ashbee, alleges that sheriff’s officials violated the family’s constitutional rights against unreasonable search and seizure and due process, and seeks punitive damages.
“Defendants violated plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures of their property by unreasonably searching for Cedar when the evidence they possessed showed no crime had been committed as a matter of law and/or fact, and by confiscating Plaintiffs’ property on or about July 8, 2022, without a warrant and then disposing of and destroying plaintiffs’ property interests in Cedar,” the suit says.
Lawyer: Kids want out of 4-H auctions
Gordon, a co-founder of the nonprofit law firm Advancing Law for Animals, which advocates for animal welfare, says Cedar was seized from Sonoma County on July 8 and that Cedar possibly ended up as part of the 4-H/Future Farmers of America community barbecue in Anderson the next day.
“They had a right to a hearing before they killed him,” Gordon said of Cedar’s owners. “The cops don’t get to say in my determination that guy over there owns it.
“We don’t have all the facts yet, but the sheriff’s deputy told me they gave him ‘to who we deemed was the owner.’”
He added that the dispute is not an isolated one, with young people calling for help keeping their animals from being killed for meat.
“The case is more important than Cedar,” Gordon said. “Every year, the firm I work at gets calls from kids that want help, that are in these 4-H programs and they want out and are told they can’t.”
Jessica Long said the family has two dogs and two cats, and that her daughter has also had chickens.
“But this was the first one that she was primarily responsible for,” Long said. “She picked the name Cedar.”
