Garden City Harvest Responds to ‘Murderer’ Vandalism

At around 11:00 a.m., on Sunday morning, October 24, Missoula Police responded to a vandalism complaint at the Garden City Harvest building on Hickory Street. The word “murderer” was written in red paint on the front door, above the letters A-L-F. t

"It was definitely upsetting, and just an inconvenience to have to clean off the building," said Garden City Harvest Community Outreach Coordinator Genevieve Jessop Marsh. "It definitely felt a little violating for all of us. There is a group of students at the University that have been protesting the three pigs we are raising at the farms, they, I don't believe, have anything to do with the graffiti, but they have involved PETA."

Jessop Marsh says that emails and complaint letters have been pouring in to protest the death of three pigs that were raised by the Garden City Harvest and slaughtered last Wednesday. Jessop Marsh says the letters A-L-F stand for a group known as the Animal Liberation Front, and that the slaughter of the pigs may have provoked the attack, however, she also says that Garden City Harvest is not changing its pig rearing program.

"We definitely stand by our educational programming, we think this is an important piece of it. These kids, one of the there favorite things to do when they come to the farm is to learn about the pigs and its a really great teaching tool for us, as well as a great food source for the food bank."

One-third of the meat raised by Garden City Harvest is donated to the Missoula Food Bank. According to Missoula Police Public Information Officer Travis Welsh, police have “no leads” on who might have caused the vandalism.