͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌ ͏‌To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. To enact good laws, we must elect good lawmakers, and that’s why we remind voters which candidates care about our issues and which ones don’t. If you’d like to unsubscribe, click here. [[link removed]]

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Dear friend,
It’s a familiar refrain from the narrator on the long-running television drama “Law & Order”:
In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders.
We agree with the need for that pairing of law enforcement personnel. That’s precisely why we are working to create two structures — a policing unit and a prosecuting unit — within the federal law enforcement ecosystem to concentrate on animal cruelty crimes.
Today, with Animal Wellness Action’s leadership, U.S. Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., have introduced the FBI Animal Cruelty Taskforce (FBI ACT) Act — a groundbreaking measure to create a dedicated set of FBI agents to concentrate on investigating acts of cruelty and arresting perpetrators.
It’s an idea whose time has come.
Our nation has a set of federal anti-cruelty laws, which Animal Wellness Action has worked to build in the last seven years. There’s the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act, the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act, the Pet and Women’s Safety Act, and others.
Now we need the federal law enforcement capacity to breathe life into those statutes.
The dedicated FBI agents assembled into a taskforce at the Department of Justice would concentrate on dogfighting, cockfighting, the production and distribution of so-called “animal crush” videos, and other heinous acts illegal under federal law.
And the team envisioned by the FBI ACT Act would work hand-in-hand with a team of prosecutors that would be formed with the passage of the Animal Cruelty Enforcement (ACE) Act, H.R. 1477, led by Reps. David Joyce (R-Ohio) and Joe Neguse (D-Colo.).
We need both police and prosecutors, and that’s exactly what we’ll get if lawmakers enact the FBI ACT Act and the ACE Act.
Animal Cruelty Networks Cannot Be Dismantled with Fleeting Attention
Staged animal fighting is a form of national and international organized crime. Staged fights involve pitting specially bred and trained animals against each other for illegal gambling.
The animals are often drugged to heighten their aggression and forced to keep fighting even after they’ve suffered grievous injuries such as broken bones, deep gashes, flesh tears, punctured lungs, and pierced eyes.
In cockfighting, birds have sharp metal weapons — knives or gaffs — strapped to their legs to maim and deliver deep and lethal wounds.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says there may be upwards of 20 million fighting birds and 150,000 cockfighting operators in the nation. There are tens of thousands involved in dogfighting. There are thousands of animal crush videos made and distributed every year.
Without a team to focus on these crimes, they will persist and fester. The criminals will stay one step ahead. They will take their chances with the law.
When we crack down on animal cruelty, we make our communities safer, because malicious acts of violence against animals are invariably tangled up with other criminal conduct, such as narcotics trafficking, domestic violence, human trafficking, and illegal firearms.
The FBI has conducted a recent set of busts, but even the folks at the FBI know that they are just scratching the surface of the problem.
In the indictment earlier this year of former NFL player LeShon Johnson, FBI Director Kash Patel signaled he understands the gravity of animal cruelty and its links to other crimes.
“The FBI will not tolerate criminals that harm innocent animals for their twisted form of entertainment,” he said. He also emphasized that these cases are not isolated — that animal cruelty investigations are “a precursor to larger, organized crime efforts, similar to trafficking and homicides.”
Well, Congress should give Director Patel the support he seems to crave. Together, they can create a new Animal Cruelty Taskforce at the FBI and an Animal Cruelty Crimes section within the Department of Justice.
Animal Cruelty Crimes Are Urgent Matters for the Nation
Animal Wellness Action understand that this is the one-two punch needed to stop these crimes. We’re urging Congress to pass both bills without delay. Or to have Director Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi seize the moment and create the sections on their own.
Some old-school thinkers may say we have higher priorities than enforcing anti-cruelty laws. What they don’t understand is that criminals gather together at spectacles of animal cruelty.
By rounding up perpetrators of dogfights, cockfighters, and other forms of malicious cruelty, we dismantle the networks spreading violence and lawlessness in our communities. There’s no more important network to target than these criminal bands that take aim at innocent animals and people.
👉 Click here to send a message to your representative urging them to support the FBI ACT Act. [[link removed]]

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For the animals,
Wayne Pacelle [[link removed]] Wayne Pacelle
President
Animal Wellness Action
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