Jessica Long, her 9-year-old daughter and Cedar the goat They are the good guys in a story with a sad ending.

The events, which began in 2022, have recently been updated through the modification of a lawsuit brought by the owner of the goat against the people who allowed him to cook it.

It all started in April of last year when Jessica bought Cedar to raise on her farm.

His initial plan wasn’t for his little daughter to get all that attached to the animal, so when he had to decide to enter Cedar in the livestock auction at the Shasta District Fair, he did so without shaking his wrist.

The animal was sold on June 25, 2022 to a representative of the state senator, Brian Dahlfor $902, of which $63.14 would go to the fair and $838.86 to the owners of the goat. Every living thing that enters that fair has an inescapable fate.and Jessica knew it very well.

But her daughter didn’t easily refuse to part with her most beloved pet. Seeing the little girl devastated by the goat’s departure, Jessica believed she still had time for her redemption and she didn’t doubt it: He showed up to where the goat had been sent and stole it.. He preferred to act and then suffer the consequences.

“It was heartbreaking. The barn was nearly empty and I decided at the last minute to break the rules and take the goat that night and face the consequences later,” Long told the fair via email.

Little did the woman know that the balance of her act would be more than harsh.

an inevitable ending

The Senator ignored Long’s calls. Jessica offered to pay him what she had spent on the pet in exchange for letting him live.

The fair and the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CFDA) were constantly asking him to return the goat, but Long claimed an exception. The Department ordered him to comply with the rules to the letter; from the fair they told him that he would “serious consequences” if he hadn’t returned to Cedar.

Two weeks later, a county sheriff, Jeremy Ashbee, filed a search warrant to remove the goat from his Napa home. If the doors were to be broken down, they would break down; if the windows were to be breached, they would be breached.

Ready for anything, they tried to find Cedar at Jessica’s farm. Nothing. Not the goat. However, it didn’t take long to find her. The poor animal was resting in a Sonoma barn where Jessica had sent it to avoid being killed.

While the police search warrant applied to Long’s home, it did not apply to the Sonoma barn Cedar was staying in. However, not caring about this, bailiffs entered and took the goat with them to Shasta, where it was turned over to unidentified fairground personnel for “slaughter or destruction.”

The end, we had anticipated, would have been sad: The cedar is said to have been roasted and eaten at a “community barbecue”.

The Long family’s plea for officials to be more compassionate in cases like these was not enough.

The defence

Vanessa ShakibJessica’s attorney, described the events as an “abuse of power” and “farce”.

The woman is currently suing Shasta sheriff’s officials, the district and other alleged parties for actual, general and punitive damages, according to court documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee.

“What has happened here is an abuse of power and an incredible waste of taxpayer resources.,” Shakib told The Post. “Government officials turned a purely civil dispute into a bogus criminal case.”

“Police officers improperly pleaded judge and jury and disposed of a girl’s family pet in violation of her due process rights,” the attorney added.

Shakib said “California state officials certainly have more pressing matters to attend to than a publicly funded 500-mile trip to illegally seize a girl’s goat.”

How will the story continue?

Source: The Sacramento Bee, The New York Post