Burlington activist to hold vigils to honour memory of pigs killed in crash
In October, Krajnc went to an intersection where a truck carrying pigs had crashed, killing 60 of them
An Ontario woman recently found not guilty of mischief after giving water to pigs headed to slaughter plans to hold a vigil to honour the memory of pigs killed in a crash in Burlington last October.
Anita Krajnc was charged with obstructing police and breach of recognizance after she crossed a police line last fall to get closer to an overturned truck full of pigs in Burlington.
On Oct. 5, Krajnc raced out to an intersection where the transport truck had crashed, killing 60 pigs. The remaining 100 pigs were marched to a nearby slaughterhouse.
Krajnc said she went past the police tape set up in the area to get a closer view of what happened and to record the pigs' suffering.
Video of the scene shows her being dragged away by police and then placed in handcuffs. She said she went limp on purpose and wasn't hurt in the incident.
The charges against Krajnc were stayed earlier this month, according to Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General, which didn't provide a reason for the decision.
"I was in a different mental state that day," Krajnc said. "When I first got there, some pigs were outside the truck, just walking around. There's nothing like seeing pigs walking on the sidewalk and eating grass after you've done years of weekly vigils at a site. It was hard to comprehend that vision."
As she surveyed the bloody scene, it was the noise that got to her, she said.
"I can't tell you how difficult it was for me to hear the pigs screaming. And I wanted to bear witness and take video of as much as I could, so I went past the tape. Twice, I went past. Twice."
She said she plans to hold a vigil every October to honour the pigs' memory.
'I would have gone to jail for those pigs'
"I have mixed feelings," Krajnc said Thursday about the charges from the incident being stayed.
"My perspective is always: what is best for the pigs? I don't want the pigs who died at the rollover crash to ever be forgotten. I would have gone to jail for those pigs."
Earlier this month, in a separate case, Krajnc was acquitted of a mischief charge laid after she gave water to pigs on a truck headed to an abattoir.
In that case, a judge ruled that Krajnc didn't break the law since she didn't harm the animals or prevent them from being slaughtered when she dumped liquid from a water bottle into a truck carrying pigs as the vehicle approached a Burlington slaughterhouse in June 2015.
The judge said, however, that Krajnc may have been motivated in part by the prospect of drawing attention to her cause.
"The fact that Ms. Krajnc gave water to a pig received little attention initially," Justice David Harris said in his ruling. "Conversely, the act of prosecuting Ms. Krajnc has probably led to enough bad publicity for the pork industry that it might be said that the prosecution actually accomplished what they accused Ms. Krajnc of trying to do."