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ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — SeaWorld acknowledged that it sent its own workers to infiltrate an animal rights group which opposed the practices of the theme park.
The development comes months after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals accused a SeaWorld employee of trying to incite violence while posing as a fellow animal rights activist.
SeaWorld Entertainment CEO Joel Manby vowed Thursday to end the practice, but said that it had sent its employees to protect the safety of its employees and customers.
"We recognize the need to ensure that all of our security and other activities align with our core values and ethical standards," Manby said.
However, the company refused to say who had authorized the infiltration, how long it had been going on, or how many workers were used to infiltrate animal rights groups or other opponents. SeaWorld spokeswoman Aimee Jeansonne Becka cited the confidential nature of its security practices.
The employee at the center of the accusations by PETA, Paul McComb, is still employed by SeaWorld but working in another department, the company said Thursday.
PETA said last summer that its own investigation revealed that McComb, a human resource worker, attempted to incite protesters and had posted incendiary comments on social media while masquerading as an animal-rights activist since 2012.
PETA officials said Thursday that SeaWorld's refusal to fire McComb shows that it condones corporate spying. The group has been especially vocal in its criticism of SeaWorld since the 2013 documentary, "Blackfish," suggested the treatment of captive orcas provokes violent behavior.
Park attendance dropped after the release of the documentary, which chronicled events at the park leading up to the death of a SeaWorld trainer in 2010.
"The tawdry orca sideshows and despicable spying tactics are sinking SeaWorld's ship," said Tracy Reiman, PETA's executive vice president.
SeaWorld could face civil, and even criminal, legal exposure depending on the information it obtained from McComb about PETA and what the company did with the information, said Sharon Sandeen, a law professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota.
If any information SeaWorld got from McComb met the definition of a trade secret — it was secret, had value because it was secret and there was an effort by PETA to keep it secret — then PETA could have a claim of trade secret misappropriation, she said.
"PETA would have to identify information that they said was misappropriated," Sandeen said. "They would have to show they had policies in place to keep the information secret."
SeaWorld Entertainment Inc. is hiring Freeh Group International Solutions to review oversight and controls over its security practices. The firm was founded by former FBI director, Louis Freeh.
Shares of the company plunged more than 11 percent.
ATHENS, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama mental patient who died after being shot with a stun gun began having breathing difficulties within minutes of receiving the jolt, according to a police video.
The more than nine-minute video from the body camera of Sgt. Dusty Meadows shows officers and medical workers trying to calm 49-year-old Randy Joe Nelson at Athens-Limestone Hospital on Feb. 3.
Nelson is shot with a stun gun and loses consciousness within minutes. He died five days later at another hospital.
Athens police released the video on Wednesday. Chief Floyd Johnson made a brief statement during a news conference but declined to answer questions, citing the possibility of a lawsuit, the Decatur Daily (http://bit.ly/1Lg1cdn ) reported.
The video shows Nelson growing agitated as officers help hold him on a bed for a medical worker. Nelson gets up, flails his arms, strikes a wall and knees a man as an officer tells his mother, Dorothy Nelson: "Mom, I'm going to have to tase him, and I don't want to, but I'm going to have to, OK?"
"OK," she responds.
Sgt. Greg Lott later shoots Nelson in the back with a stun gun and the man falls, possibly striking his head on a counter. Police and hospital workers struggle to get the man onto his stomach and handcuff his hands behind him.
With Nelson on the floor, someone asks if he is breathing.
"He's kind of blue right now," a man responds. A female hospital worker mentions the possibility of inserting a breathing tube before Nelson is wheeled out of the room on a gurney.
Nelson was transferred to Huntsville Hospital, where he died Feb. 8 after doctors removed life-support equipment.
Nelson's mother described him as having bipolar disorder and said she took him to the hospital in Athens because his condition was worsening. Court records show the man had a history of mental problems that led to previous encounters with police and arrests.
Federal officials are preparing to enforce an 86-year-old ban on importing goods made by children or slaves under new provisions of a law signed by President Barack Obama.
"This law slams shut an unconscionable and archaic loophole that forced America to accept products made by children or slave labor," said Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon democrat who worked on the legislation.
The Tariff Act of 1930, which gave Customs and Border Protection the authority to seize shipments where forced labor was suspected and block further imports, was last used in 2000, and has been used only 39 times all together largely because of two words: "consumptive demand" — if there was not sufficient supply to meet domestic demand, imports were allowed regardless of how they were produced.
The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act signed by Obama on Wednesday eliminated that language, allowing stiffer enforcement. US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske and agency leaders are planning a briefing Friday to explain how they'll be implementing the new law.
"If the U.S. government works to really keep out goods made with forced labor, this change will have a profound ripple effect on supply chains worldwide," said David Abramowitz, who advocated for the change as vice president for Humanity United.
To start an investigation, Customs needs to receive a petition from anyone — a business, an agency, even a non-citizen — showing "reasonably but not conclusively" that imports were made at least in part with forced labor.
A Labor Department list of more than 350 goods produced by child labor or forced labor provides a detailed breakdown that human rights groups plan to use as they petition the government to take action. These include peanuts from Turkey, gold from Ghana, carpets from India and fish and shrimp from Thailand.
An expose by The Associated Press last year found Thai companies ship seafood to the U.S. that was caught and processed by trapped and enslaved workers. As a result of the reports, more than 2,000 trapped fishermen have been rescued, more than a dozen alleged traffickers arrested and millions of dollars' worth of seafood and vessels seized.
Last April AP also identified and highlighted the legal loophole that allowed continued imports of slave-caught seafood; a month later Obama promised to repeal the consumptive demand exception and ensured "swift, strong and effective enforcement."
Subsequent reporting by AP, the New York Times and other media has continued to highlight both the inhumane working conditions in the Thai seafood sector, and the legal loophole that allowed continued imports.
Gavin Gibbons, a spokesman for National Fisheries Institute, which represents about 75 percent of the U.S. seafood industry, said Thursday their members want to see the ban enforced.
"We support the closing of this anachronistic loophole and look forward to fair and judicious implementation," he said.