Is Georgia District Attorney Ignoring Cruelty at Tyson Slaughterhouse?

In 2007, PETA conducted undercover investigations of two chicken slaughterhouses owned by Tyson Foods, Inc., which supplies chicken meat to KFC. PETA's investigator documented sickening cruelty to animals in both the Cumming, Georgia, and Union City, Tennessee, facilities. Supervisors at both facilities were either directly involved in the abuse or made aware of it by the investigator—but the supervisors did not stop the abuse.

In addition to the cuts and broken limbs suffered by live chickens at nearly every slaughterhouse that PETA has ever investigated, the undercover investigator documented the following at the Georgia location:

• One worker admitted that he broke a chicken's back by beating the bird against a rail, that a back-up killer stabbed birds in the neck area with knives, and that several birds were hung from shackles by their necks instead of their legs.
• PETA's investigator caught a supervisor on videotape as he told the investigator that it was acceptable to rip the heads off live birds who had been improperly shackled by the head.
• Workers—sometimes standing 4 to 6 feet away from the conveyor belt—violently threw birds against the shackles. Some animals were slammed into the shackles and fell onto birds on the conveyor belt below, at which point the workers sometimes repeated the abuse.
• Birds died when their heads and legs became trapped under a door at the end of the conveyor belt that transported live birds to be hung. A supervisor was aware of this problem but did nothing to stop it.
• The killing-machine blade often cut birds' bodies instead of their throats. Although aware of this problem, a supervisor offered no solution and instead blamed the problem on the "nature of the machine."

In January 2008, PETA filed a formal complaint with Forsyth County, Georgia, District Attorney Penny Penn calling for vigorous prosecution of the perpetrators and the company for cruelty to animals. Nearly five months later, Penn has yet to reply to numerous attempts by PETA and others to discuss the evidence and what her office has done or intends to do.

Please write to District Attorney Penny Penn and ask her to investigate and charge and prosecute as appropriate, Tyson and its workers for their documented abuse of chickens in Cumming.