Animal Activists Toughen Tactics

The anti-Diliberto signs are posted on stopthekilling.net, a website affiliated with the Animal Liberation Front, which has labeled pictures of Stuckey and other top city animal services officials "Targets" and "Most Wanted Scum." Over the past two years, the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI have increasingly focused on the Animal Liberation Front. Both law enforcement agencies say they have linked the group to vandalism against McDonald's restaurants in the Harbor Gateway and Crenshaw districts as well as earlier this year in Torrance. Slogans spray-painted by the vandals included "Don't feed your kids McKillers," "Stop McKiller" and "We won't sleep until the slaughter ends". No arrests have been made.

In December, the group was suspected of vandalizing the Sylmar home of Jackie David, a former spokeswoman for the Animal Services Department, although no arrests were made, according to the LAPD.

Six people were detained April 26 on suspicion of felony vandalism after allegedly breaking windows and defacing the Hollywood Hills home of an executive with a Pasadena life sciences company.

Randy Parsons, acting assistant director of the FBI in Los Angeles, said his office is concerned by the group's "pattern of vandalism and harassment."

"When it's brought to people's homes the potential for confrontation and injury is far greater," Parsons said. Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said picketing officials' homes, as the Animal Defense League members and other activists have been doing, is constitutionally protected.

But it needs to stop there, she said.

"When protesters move beyond protesting and break windows or write graffiti that's breaking the law," Ripston said, referring to the alleged activities of the Animal Liberation Front. "But passing an ordinance that says you can't protest in a residential neighborhood violates the 1st Amendment."

The conflict is at a stalemate: The activists say they won't stop, and Diliberto says he doesn't want to move from his home.

His neighbors say they support free speech, but the activists have gone too far and have little to show for it.

"My concern is that they're not using what I consider a constructive way to get their message across," said Charlie Hutchinson, president of the Larchmont Village Neighborhood Assn.