Los Angeles Rams linebackers Bobby Wagner and Takkarist McKinley tackled an animal rights activist who disrupted the team’s game against the San Francisco 49ers during Monday Night Football.
Just before halftime, a member of Direct Action Everywhere, an animal rights group, who were attending Monday night’s game ran across the 49ers Levi’s Stadium with a device releasing red and pink smoke to raise awareness about a massive pig factory farm allegedly hiding its abuses inside the facility.
The nonprofit reports Allison Fluty and Alex Taylor were cited, with one still in police custody, after running onto the field at separate points during the second quarter.
ESPN reports one evaded security and rushed toward the Rams’ sideline when McKinley and Wagner took matters into their own hands and laid out the protester near the 40-yard line. The other protester ran out onto the field with a similar device earlier in the game but was apprehended by security.
Bobby Wagner stopped the fan who ran onto the field 😳
(via @cameronsalerno1)pic.twitter.com/xWNQCPjliC
— ESPN (@espn) October 4, 2022
Monday night’s incident marks the second time a fan ran onto the field with a device letting out pink smoke during a game. The animal rights group interrupted the season-opening Bills-Rams game last month with two activists running onto the field, TMZ reported.
The protesters who rushed the field hoped to raise awareness about a trial involving two of the group’s activists. Five members of Direct Action Everywhere allegedly snuck onto Circle Four Farms in Milford, Utah, back in 2017 and recorded themselves taking two piglets that they said were being treated inhumanely.
Wayne Hsiung and Paul Darwin Picklesimer, the two remaining defendants facing charges, could face more than ten years in prison on felony burglary and theft charges.
“Smithfield will do anything to hide its abuses from the public because they know that if people saw what is happening inside factory farms, they would be horrified,” Taylor has said.
“They are going to great lengths to throw two of my friends in prison for years simply for investigating their farms and rescuing sick and dying piglets,” he added, according to Direct Action Everywhere. “I took action to raise awareness about the ongoing Smithfield trial.”
The Spectrum reports that representatives for Smithfield Foods, which owns Circle Four Farms, have called the videos deceptive, and told The Washington Post that the activists were “trespassing onto company property, breaking into a barn, stealing animals and violating Smithfield’s strict biosecurity policy to prevent the spread of disease onto our farms.”
