Imagine being hit on the head and finding yourself dazed but still fully conscious. A chain is attached to one of your legs and you're hoisted upside down onto an assembly line. Gigantic clippers are used to snip off the lower parts of your arms and legs. Completely helpless, you feel workers cutting into your thighs, belly, and sides as they strip your skin from your legs to your neck.

Atrocities like these have been familiar sights at IBP, according to sworn affidavits from almost two dozen plant workers. One employee stated, "Workers open the hide on the legs, the stomach, the neck, they cut off the feet while the cow is breathing. It makes noise. It's looking around." According to another, "I've seen thousands and thousands of cows go through the slaughter process alive."

Hidden camera videotape obtained by HFA - and broadcast on KING-5 TV - shows, among other abuses, live cows at IBP dangling upside down from a moving conveyor, animals being trampled and dragged, and a disabled cow having an electric prod forced into its mouth. State officials have yet to file animal cruelty charges.

After more than two years of undercover investigation, HFA, in June 2000, published an ad which included allegations by IBP workers that cows were being skinned and cut up while still alive and conscious. In a joint investigative report with KING 5 TV, these alleged abuses were brought to the attention of a wide viewership resulting in tens thousands of complaints to Washington State's Governor and Attorney general. A second ad on November 13 asks what the Governor is doing to address these complaints.

Earlier this year, the Humane Farming Association (HFA) and several other organizations filed a legal petition with the State to enforce its Anti-Cruelty Law and Humane Slaughter Act at IBP. Governor Gary Locke responded by forming a task force to investigate the allegations of criminal animal cruelty. He promised that if violations were found at IBP, the State would file charges. However, several questionable actions by the Governor's task force have raised concerns about the State's commitment to enforcing the law. A number of task force members have shown a bias towards IBP. And it appears that the investigation may now become little more than an exercise in public relations.

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