By: Molly Shoffner
As the former home of Western’s psychology department and the infamous animal research labs where the monkey experiments took place, Miller Hall is a maze of classrooms that mirrors its maze of lore in the past. Nowadays, the only thing you’ll find running around the hallways of Miller are the students running late to class. But, in the fall of 1999, there was a chance you could find a little white rat, or two, or 37, running around those same hallways.
Photo Description: Flyer produced and dispersed by WARN (Western Animal Rights Network) for events occurring on March 3rd and 4th, 1999. Courtesy of University Archives and Records Management.
Though many protests on Western’s campus have targeted animal research, prior to and since, the Animal Liberation Front’s 1999 raid on Miller Hall was the first act of vandalism, and the ripple effect of events that followed marked many other firsts in the odd and lesser-known history of the university.
The Breakdown of the Break-in:
Between the hours of 10:30pm and 10:25am on Saturday, October 23rd and Sunday, October 24th, 1999, multiple animal behavioral research labs in the basement of Miller Hall were broken into, with 37 white rats and 4 white rabbits stolen. Shortly after the break-in was reported, a notorious animal rights organization known as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) claimed responsibility in an email to the Portland Oregonian newspaper by detailing their actions.
At the time, David Barbarash, spokesman for the North American Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group, said “The two main goals [of the ALF] are to liberate animals from labs or places of abuse or to release animals into the wild and to cause as much economic damage as possible through use of non-violent property destruction.”
In addition to the labs, the ALF group broke into numerous offices of psychology department faculty members at the time, including the office of professor Merle Prim, who was utilizing the labs to conduct behavioral research on rhesus macaques. The ALF vandalized both the labs and offices, graffitiing slogans such as “WE’LL BE BACK,” and “SADISTS,” in red spray paint. They ransacked through the labs and offices, pouring Muratic acid over research files and other documents pertaining to the research. In total, at least $15,000 worth of damage was caused.
Photo Description: The spray-painted bulletin board in the office of Western animal care technician Troy Morin. Photo taken by Steve Uhles for The Western Front, October 26th, 1999. Image Courtesy of The Western Front Archives.
The email from the ALF to Portland’s Oregonian newspaper said they “…entered the building shortly after midnight, first destroying [Merle] Prim’s lifetime of research derived from torturing primates, and seizing crucial documents related to animal research.” Though there was evidence they had attempted to break into the lab where Prim’s monkeys were housed, the attempt was unsuccessful. The email from the ALF also noted that they were “…unable to liberate eight rabbits due to electrode implants,” but they had “…documented their horrendous condition on video…” and “…also came across large lizards that were not able to be liberated.”
Photo Description: Komo News 4 cameraman Steve Ramaley shoots footage of empty rat cages that remained after the raid. Photo taken by Chris Goodenow for The Western Front. Image courtesy of The Western Front Archives, October 26th, 1999.
The ALF group also videotaped the break-in, release of animals, and vandalizations, showing masked members of the group participating in actions such as spray-painting “THANKS FOR THE KEYS!” on the wall of an office where keys were found (left), petting two of the four stolen lab rabbits (right), and taking a rabbit out of its cage to put in a duffel bag for transport. Later, the tape was anonymously sent to Seattle’s KIRO-TV News, where it was shown on-air on the 26th.
Photo Description: Still images taken from a self-made video by the ALF of the raid. Left: Members spray paint “THANKS FOR THE KEYS!” on the wall of an office where keys were found. Right: Members pet two of the four stolen lab rabbits. Images courtesy of The Western Front Archives, ALF via KIRO-TV Seattle, October 29th, 1999.
The Aftermath:
In the following weeks, multiple of the white rats were spotted around Miller Hall. One was even caught in the Miller Hall Coffee Shop and returned to the psychology department. This confirmed that at least some of the rats were released to run around Miller Hall immediately after being stolen. However, due to the specialized diet of the animals and controlled temperature of the labs, the released rats posed little chance of survival outside their meticulously controlled environments.
According to a statement made to The Front by former psychology department chair Ronald Kleinknecht, once the rats were returned, they would have no choice but to euthanize them. Kleinknecht said, “The animals were disease-free when they were stolen. Now, they’ve been exposed to a variety of potential diseases and we can’t bring them back into the lab for health reasons, nor can we risk letting students or faculty adopt them.”
Photo Description: Photo of a white lab rat in a cage in Western’s psychology department animal research labs published in the October 26th, 1999 issue of The Western Front. Image courtesy of The Western Front Archives.
The original copy of the ALF break-in tape was sent by KIRO-TV to Western’s The Front with permission from ALF spokesman Barbarash as source material for their coverage of the break-in and the aftermath. The Front Editor at the time, Erin Becker, was subpoenaed by university police to hand over the tape as evidence. Becker initially declined on the basis of journalistic integrity, though was forced by court order to release the tape to campus police, as the judge stated no confidential agreement existed between The Front and the ALF.
At the time of the Miller Hall break-in, animal rights were at the forefront of the public eye, at Western and beyond. It was common occurrence to see protests in Red Square against the psychology department’s animal research labs. In the 1990s the ALF, classified as an animal rights extremist group by the FBI, had initiated what they call “liberations” onto numerous organizations and universities in the United States, including a break-in at Washington State University in 1991 that closely resembled the one here at Western.
In February of 2000, the Millar Hall basement was broken into and vandalized once again, with slogans similar to the ALF’s written on the locked doors to labs. Despite their graffitied promise to return just four months before, this break-in was never claimed by the ALF, and neither break-ins have resulted in any known convictions.
Sources:
Public Records courtesy of Western Washington University’s Public Records Center
Documents courtesy of University Archives and Records Management
The Western Front Historical Collection, Courtesy of Western Libraries
FBI Archives: Animal Rights Extremism and Ecoterrorism Testimony