When I was a police reporter, I covered many hearings and trials, I remember one murder trial in Philadlelpha. A mob hit man was accused of killing several people, and after each recess or hearing – the legal process, for murder or misdemeanor, is neither simple, swift or cheap – the accused and his attorney would stand apart from the reporters and gawkers and confer. I was to see this lonely ritual a thousand times in my reporting life, it was as much a feature of the justice system as a judge in a robe.
When I left the Glenville Town Court last night, I saw Joshua Rockwood (right) and his impressive and sharply-dressed attorney confer, as the hit men did with their lawyers. How on earth, I wondered, did this idealistic and gentle and much-loved young man get to this place? A few yards away, a dozen reporters waited eagerly, pointed their video cameras.
Is this really the kind of people we want to be? Spring is the most joyous and satisfying time for farmers, they come out of the dark and hard winter into the season of birth, planting, warmth and light. For Joshua Rockwood, Spring will be a dark and difficult time, worse in so many ways than the winter.
Can anyone who is not a farmer, I wondered looking at this scene, possibly imagine what it is like to care for scores of animals alone in an upstate New York Winter where the water pipes of thousands of people were bursting and freezing every day in one of the coldest periods in history?
In this dreadful winter – my outdoor frost-freeze froze a month ago, the heating pipes in my study weeks before – it turned out that none of Joshua’s animals froze, none died, or was seriously injured, but his real troubles were just beginning.
And what is it that happened, really?
What caused Joshua the most harm was not the brutal winter or his lack of total preparedness for it – who could have imagined it? – but one of the new secret animal police informers, a new breed of anonymous whisperer and back-stabber who betrays neighbors and other human beings in the name of loving animals.
There were scores of people – farmers mostly – who came to Glenville because they did know what it takes to get a farm through a winter like that, and they came to let Joshua know they were there, they understood, they would fight for him. I imagine he was much cheered, and I imagine they will be back.
I must confess, and I am a lifelong supporter both of animal rights and animal welfare, that I am with the Irish (and the mob) when it comes to informers, there is something sleazy and traitorous about them, I could never be one, certainly not in the name of caring for animals. They are sneaky, they live in the dark and feast on their own self-righteousness. They are not like good citizen witnesses who see something wrong and rush to help or do the right thing by reporting it. They are something else, something to me, nothing really good. I know that some help animals who are truly abused, many have different reasons and other motives. The so-called animal rights movement has spawned many, all over the country.
It is good work for the righteous and the angry.
The writer T.H.White once wrote that secret informers eventually choke on their own bile, they devour themselves.
Today I am hoping to meet Joshua Rockwood and see his farm. I am getting a lot of messages from his friends – some are already telling me what photos to use and what words to choose and what newspapers to contact for more publicity. I am familiar with this phenomenon, it happens all the time. I will explain to them that while I support the team, I am not on the team, or working for it. I live and write outside the tent, this hopefully protects my integrity and perspective. I am not a joiner.
The word I have heard the most about Joshua Rockwood is a curious one: heart-broken. People tell me every day they are heartbroken about what has happened to him. I didn’t quite get that until I went to the hearing last night, and saw Joshua and his lawyer talking out in the lot. I knew what the lawyer was saying: talk to no one, give no statements. Being honest in the legal process can only get you into trouble, can only be used against you.
Seeing this clean-cut man out in the parking lot with his lawyer in this awful and familiar ritual was striking. Joshua looked terrified, drained and uncomfortable. It did make me angry. It should not have happened.
By this time, I had pored over a many documents, talked to a score of people about Joshua (many more had messaged me), this is why I had come to Glenville. I was beginning to get a good sense of him: decent, honest, idealistic, inexperienced, hard-working, open about his life. I liked the people who were talking to me. That matters.
And it was heartbreaking to see him and his lawyer having to enact this old ritual, the lawyer and the accused felon, time after time, place after place. It is a heartbreaking thing that this had to get to court in the first place, had to become a media circus, had to damage a young man’s good reputation, drain his resources, frighten his family, shatter his nerves, disrupt his life, threaten his farm.
And what is this all about? None of his animals are dead, none are grievously injured, there is to date no evidence that any were harmed at all.
Surely, there is a better, saner and more humane way to deal with this all?
Like every farmer in the Northeastern United States, Joshua Rockwood has survived an awful winter, but unlike most people with farms, he now has to endure an awful Spring as well. It should never have come to this, it is a heartbreaking commentary on the death of community and common sense and perspective.
This should never have happened. But you don’t have to feed bad about it, you can do something positive and affirming. Here is the silver lining in the dark cloud. Joshua is fighting back and he has a good lawyer. If, like me, you wish to help make sure it never happens again, please consider Joshua’s gofundme campaign to raise $50,000 back for his legal fees and to recover the animals he loved that were stolen from him.