Posted on 07/19/2007 2:25:50 PM PDT by Joann37
Tell the NFL to Suspend Michael Vick! NFL star Michael Vick, of the Atlanta Falcons, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on felony dogfighting charges. Vick is charged with violating federal laws against competitive dogfighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting, and conducting the enterprise across state lines.
In a raid conducted on April 25 and 26, local and state law enforcement officials found 70 dogs—including at least 60 pit bulls and many dogs who reportedly were neglected, scarred, and malnourished—on quarterback Vick's rural Surry County, Virginia, property. Some of the animals evidently bear scars and injuries, and paraphernalia commonly associated with dogfighting—including a "rape stand"—are also said to have been found on the property.
Humane officers and other law enforcement officials routinely break up illegal dogfighting rings and confiscate dogfighting paraphernalia, including treadmills used to build the dogs' endurance and drugs used either to numb pain caused by injuries or to "jazz up" the dogs. According to Vick's indictment, even if the losing dogs survived, they met a cruel fate, "sometimes put to death by drowning, strangulation, hanging, gun shot, electrocution, or some other method."
The professional sports world is plagued with players who have been accused, charged, or convicted of cruelty to animals, abusing pit bulls, and dogfighting, and we hope that this indictment sends a loud and clear message to players and the NFL that celebrity is not a sufficient excuse for breaking the law and that animal abuse should never be tolerated under any circumstances.
We need your help to tell the NFL that someone who allows this kind of neglect and abuse to occur doesn't belong in its organization. Please write to the NFL to ask that Vick be immediately suspended.
Read this and then let’s see if you still say “let’s wait for the guilty verdict”:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0717072vick1.html
I'm with you there 100%. I don't want to encourage them (the NFL or their players) or the TV stations (for the ratings) either. And I certainly won't let my kids spend (wasted) money buying jerseys etc. These people (like Vick) aren't "heroes" to be emulated at all!!!
They use it for breeding--they lash a female dog to the thing, it makes it impossible to her to move. Then they bring in the male dogs. I suppose it's to keep her from possibly injuring the male dogs, wouldn't want to let the 'goods' damaged.
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