Another animal rights activist was successful in their disruptive protest during tonight’s Grizzles-Timberwolves game.
On Saturday, Sasha Zemmel of St. Louis, Missouri dressed as a ref and tried to enter the court. Her idea was to stop play and approach Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor’s seat to issue a “technical foul and ejection,” along with a “fine.” She is protesting the Timberwolves majority owner for an incident involving chickens at an egg farm he owns.
From people watching the game, she didn’t get very far. She was immediately stopped by security and arrested.
Direct Action Everywhere released a press release that gave more details on Zemmel’s makeshift referee jersey. The jersey had the number 5.3 displayed on the back, in honor of more than 5.3 million chickens killed following an outbreak of “highly pathogenic avian influenza” (HPAI) at the facility.
The group said they were killed using “ventilation shutdown plus” (VSD+), a mass killing method whereby ventilation openings in the industrial sheds full of birds are closed, and some combination of heat, steam and/or carbon dioxide gas are introduced to suffocate them.
This is the third disruption by animal rights activists. On April 12, a woman attempted to glue herself to the floor during the Clippers-Timberwolves play-in game. On April 16, a woman chained herself to the basket during Game 1 of the Timberwolves-Grizzlies series.
