"I believe there will be criminal charges forthcoming on the completion of this investigation," Okeechobee County Sheriff Noel Stephen said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
The video, filmed by a member of the Animal Recovery Mission (ARM) working at a Larson Dairy farm in Okeechobee County, Florida, in August, was published last Thursday.
Warning: This video may be too sensitive for some viewers.
"Dairy supervisors and milkers beat, stab and torment dairy cows with steel construction rebar," the narrator says. "The sharp metal rods pierce and penetrate the cows' bodies. Kept hidden from tours and visitors to the dairy, the cows are brutalized."
The footage has sparked outrage.
"Abusing those poor helpless dairy cows [is] so sad," a Vimeo commenter wrote on the animal rights group's video. "I hope those involved get caught and are [sentenced] to prison for 15 years for each offense of abuse."
But it wasn't just netizens getting in on the action: Larson Dairy's biggest partner, Publix Supermarkets, announced Thursday it would be suspending all milk deliveries from the farm. The company added in a statement that they were "shocked" and "disturbed" by the treatment shown in the video.
"We are also in contact with the F[lorida] Dept of Agriculture, and they have advised us they will be visiting Larson Dairy as quickly as possible to ensure the safety and well-being of the animals," the company wrote. "At Publix, we are committed to animal welfare and are focused on working with suppliers who share the same goals."
Larson Dairy, considered "the dean of dairymen" in southern Florida by the Florida Dairy Farmers, responded to the backlash, announcing that an employee seen in the video had already been fired and that two other workers had been placed on suspension, according to Sheriff Stephen.
Though officials at the farm claimed to be shocked by the footage, they later questioned why the Miami-Beach advocacy group waited so long to report the behavior.
"We are equally concerned about the manner in which this video was brought to our attention," Jacob Larson, the owner of the farm, said. "Had the ‘undercover' employee brought this to our attention when it occurred, we may have been able to prevent it earlier."
Speaking to WPBF, Larson outright suggested the animal rights group had "an agenda" and that "they want to put farms out of business."
Firing back at Larson, Richard Couto, the founder of ARM, told the Sun-Sentinel that the group had no reason to target the farm and that they simply wanted to see what "was happening in a typical, larger-scale dairy setting in the state of Florida."
