His shadowy outfit issued a press release last week, boasting of freeing live minks from farms and claiming responsibility for a fire last week at Kickapoo Fur Foods, a Viroqua, Wis., business that once supplied food for fur farms. Code of nonviolence. And he insists that has been the case. The militant animal rights movement has been especially active in Utah. Authorities link much of the radicalism to Straight Edge, which grew out of New York's 1980s underground punk rock scene.
Members are strict vegetarians and sport short-cropped hair, combat fatigues, and tattoos.
Authorities say the zealots take the clean-living philosophy to an extreme, firebombing a McDonald's and a leather shop in the Salt Lake City area. It escalates to arsons and bombings. World Report Inc. All rights reserved.