County Pays $300,000 To 11-Year-Old Whose Pet Goat Was Seized And Killed By Cops Because She Backed Out Of A 4-H Auction

Never underestimate the amount of effort law enforcement officers will expend to dispense as much cruelty as possible. And never forget these are the people we are expected to believe are actually there to protect and serve. While it’s great there’s a settlement payment on the way, the fact is that this extremely vindictive and extremely expensive act of uncalled-for “retribution” should never have happened in the first place.

Here’s the story: Jessica Long bought a goat as a pet for her daughter and raised it at their Shasta County, California home. Her daughter (referred to only as “E.L.” in this litigation) named it “Cedar” and cared for it daily. Long’s daughter was enrolled in the local 4-H program and decided to take her pet goat to be “exhibited” at the Shasta County Fair.

But it wasn’t an exhibition. It was a livestock auction. California state senator Brian Dahle — bidding through a proxy — won the auction for Cedar, paying $902 to take possession of the goat. E.L. didn’t want to give up her pet, perhaps misunderstanding what was actually going to happen when she walked it out for display on the auction floor. Her mother talked to fair officials, explaining her daughter’s refusal to part with her pet. She also offered to pay the auction fees for the sale that would no longer happen: $63.14, or 7% of the sales price.

The family never took possession of the state senator’s winning bid, so they weren’t trying to have their paycheck and their goat, too. When contacted about the girl’s reluctance to part with her goat, Brian Dahle assured the family he wouldn’t attempt to force the girl to give up her goat.

But the fair decided to get all shitty about it. It contacted the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office, claiming property (that would be the goat) had been “stolen” from it. The Sheriff’s Office could have noted this complaint, typed up a report, and thrown in it with the untested rape kits for the rest of whatever. But it didn’t do this. Instead, it went into hot pursuit mode. The family had since taken the goat to an animal sanctuary in Napa County.

Rather than pass this info on to Napa County officials, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office spent local money sending deputies on a 500-mile round trip to seize the “stolen” goat. By that point, the goat had already been re-homed and now resided at another farm in Sonoma County. Despite not having a warrant to search the Sonoma County farm, the deputies did so anyway. They located Cedar, seized the goat, turned it over to Shasta County fair officials (who, it should be noted, are not government officials) who immediately sent the goat out to be slaughtered.

If anything’s clear from this horrific chain of events, it’s that the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office has more money and officers than it needs. I can’t believe there’s a single person in Shasta County (not including any deputies who live there) who would be happy to know this is how their tax dollars are being spent. There’s not a person in that county (outside of fair officials) who actually think this is the sort of “crime” that’s worth 12 hours of labor (per deputy) and 500 miles of gas to handle.

There’s no bringing back Cedar. But at least E.L. and her family will get paid for this incredible waste of time and money by county law enforcement. And, hopefully, Shasta County residents will remember this as they open their pocketbooks to cover a settlement payment instigated by petty, vindictive fair officials and county law enforcement officers when the local sheriff goes up for re-election.

Shasta County and its sheriff’s office, along with a lieutenant and two detectives, agreed to settle the infamous viral case of Cedar the goat for $300,000.

Of that total amount, $100,000 is specifically earmarked in the settlement agreement. Attorneys will get $35,000 in fees, while the remaining $65,000 will go into a trust fund for the girl, now 11.

Other defendants, including fair employees and a 4-H volunteer, still remain in the suit.

TWO DETECTIVES! The sheriff’s office put two detectives on this case. Holy hell. I realize investigations aren’t zero sum, but how in all that is either holy or unholy (depending on your religious preferences) can you justify throwing three officers (two of which are detectives) at the nonexistent “theft” of a goat even the auction winner said he wasn’t willing to take possession of if the pet’s owner wasn’t willing to voluntarily part with it.

Then there’s the fair, which is its own pile of steaming horseshit. At best, the fair was only entitled to the $63.14 in commission from the sale. And the mother of the pet’s owner had already offered to cut them a check for that amount. But rather than defer to the pet owner and/or the winning bidder, it decided it needed to waste way more than $63.14 of its own time pressing theft charges. And even worse, it found a lieutenant and two detectives willing to turn the loss of $63.14 into a multi-county investigation.

These are all people who should not be in positions of power, no matter how limited. These are nasty, small people who weren’t satisfied until they’d driven halfway across the state to take a girl’s pet goat for the sole reason of slaughtering it. I cannot even fathom just how insanely vindictive you have to be to set these actions in motion, much less participate in them directly. It boggles the mind. And it absolutely boils the blood.

The settlement is great, but it hardly feels like justice. The only way to make people like this comprehend the consequences of their actions is to subject them to exactly the same sort of vindictiveness. E.L. and her mother should have been given permission to walk into the houses of the fair officials and involved officers and set fire to $300,000 of their prized personal belongings. I realize the law will never allow for that, but it somehow allows the government to do basically the same thing and to use other people’s money to buy their way out of personal accountability for their actions. No one will learn anything from this experience other than the victims of this abuse of government power.