An animal rights group says it vandalized the home of a Los Angeles
neuroscientist, adding yet another incident to a string of recent
attacks on UCLA researchers. The incident is being investigated by the
FBI and local authorities.
An anonymous
statement
posted on the Web site of the North American Animal Liberation Press
Office described in detail how the perpetrators, members of the Animal
Liberation Front, broke into the Beverly Hills house of
Edythe London, a researcher at UCLA who has investigated how
addiction influences behavior with
experiments in monkeys. The interlopers smashed a window and flooded the home with a garden hose. UCLA officials
told the
Los Angeles Times that the flooding had caused between $20,000 and $40,000 of damage.
A written
statement
by UCLA chancellor Gene Block condemned the attack and the pattern of
attacks in recent years. In June, a UCLA ophthalmologist, Arthur
Rosenbaum, found an explosive underneath his car, but the device did
not go off. Last summer, UCLA neuroscientist
Dario Ringach
said he was giving up his work with primates in response to pressure
from animal rights groups. His announcement came shortly after the
Animal Liberation Front took responsibility for an attempt to place a
Molotov cocktail on the doorstep of another UCLA researcher,
Lynn Fairbanks. (It was mistakenly placed on the doorstep of a neighbor, and also did not go off.)
