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# ———— EDITORIAL ———— What’s so funny ’bout
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/editorial-whats-so-funny-bout/
- Published: 2007-04-11T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T00:30:23.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Sunset Park, #archive-import

*peace, love and antivivisections?*

Animal rights activists returned to the scene of the supposed crime on Sunday, spending Easter outside the 12th Street home of a human genetics professor at UCLA who they charge with experimenting on primates. It was the second protest in as many months outside the house — bringing along with it police in riot gear, street closures and rubbernecking neighbors.

As expected, the group subsequently released a statement railing against the SMPD response. In the past, similar unexceptional protests were followed by charges of police brutality and harassment, though no lawsuits were filed. This time, the group is lobbing their fake blood at the police for “ludicrous over-reaction at taxpayer expense” when they guarded the man’s house with “twenty riot police wearing bullet-proof vests.”

While free speech is not only protected, but typically lauded in Santa Monica, a closer look at these “peaceful” protesters — as they claim to be in their unattributed statement — tends to put the show of force in perspective. While the shielded police manned the targeted property, protesters stood across the street spewing their vitriol for a man they likely never met. By the looks of them, they may even unwittingly pass him in the hallways at UCLA. To a person, the activists shielded their identities with monkey masks or guerilla-like ban-danas, chanting freely behind the comfort of anonymity, which must come as a comfort knowing the identity and address of the professor is splashed across animal rights Web sites.

The SMPD are right in taking whatever precautions they deemed necessary to protect a resident’s property and a neighborhood being targeted by individuals that resist accountability for the things they say and the actions they may take. In 2003, a home in Sunset Park belonging to the general manager of the L.A. Department of Animal Services was defaced, with threatening messages such as “Dog killer” spelled out in blood-red paint.

Several neighbors have voiced concern over the presence of activists who don masks and blood-splattered lab coats walking their sidewalks.

The fact of the matter is, the professor is an easy target, working for a state-funded institution of higher learning that provides him the necessary tools to perform his work. Terrorizing the individual will change little. To affect real change, the activists might do well to work from within the university... and to take off their masks.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 11, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/041107.pdf?ref=smdp.com)