An 11-year-old girl in California received a significant compensation from a police department after her beloved pet goat was taken and slaughtered in an unexpected incident.
The young girl was devastated when law enforcement seized her goat after she expressed to her mother her inability to cope with the idea of it being killed.
The girl’s mother, Jessica Long, initiated a lawsuit against the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office in 2023, following the incident a year prior when her nine-year-old daughter lost their goat, Cedar, to confiscation.
On November 1st, US District Judge Dale A. Drozd sanctioned a settlement agreement obliging Shasta County, California, to pay $300,000 to resolve the matter outside of court.
The child, at the age of nine, had begun nurturing the goat for a livestock auction at the Shasta District Fair through a program designed to teach children how to take care of farm animals.
Yet, when the moment arrived, the child could not bring herself to part with her goat, expressing to her mother her unwillingness to let him be slaughtered.
Per a report in the New York Post, the legal complaint mentioned: “After the auction, [the daughter] would not leave Cedar’s side.
“[She] loved Cedar and the thought of him going to slaughter was something she could not bear. While sobbing in his pen beside him, [she] communicated to her mother she didn’t want Cedar to go to slaughter.”
Long’s efforts to intervene were thwarted by the fair, citing rules that prevented them from reclaiming the goat.
Cedar was initially sold to Republican California State senator Brian Dahle for $902, with a seven percent commission intended for the auction.
Dahle consented to rescind the transaction and even paid the fair its commission, but the situation continued to escalate.
When the fair refused to release the goat, the mother took matters into her own hands, retrieving the goat and relocating it to a farm in Sonoma County.
The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office later secured a warrant, embarking on a nearly 500-mile roundtrip to recover the goat, although they allegedly had the warrant for the incorrect farm.
According to the lawsuit, the authorities eventually found and seized the goat without an appropriate warrant. The goat’s subsequent slaughter remains ambiguous regarding who carried out the act.
Vanessa Shakib, an attorney representing Long, commented: “Unfortunately, this litigation cannot bring Cedar home.
“But the $300,000 settlement with the County of Shasta and Shasta County Sheriff’s Office is the first step forward.”