What are you talking about? They kept it on property and law enforcement agents turned up (without a warant, inserting themselves into a civil dispute) and stole their goat.
This is the contentious point. What business did those law enforcement agents had to enter their private property and steal a goat from them?
You can’t use property rights to defend the parents.
The goat had been auctioned. Arguing for the family is arguing for a compassionate carve-out from regular property rights.
And the family argued that they have backed out of the auction before it started. Thus they haven't sold the goat. Thus they own the goat.
Are they right? I don't know. But it is far from as straight forward as you depict it to be.
As for the cops, they got a warrant [1]. (It’s unclear if they had the right to return the property to the presumptive legal owner.)
[1] https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf page 9
Not really, the sheriffs traveled outside their county and seized the goat without a warrant.
Where I come from this is called “cattle rustling” and is a hanging offense. Well, not really since I’m originally from California but it is definitely an illegal search and seizure.
Pretty sure they could’ve just told the sheriffs to fuck off and called the local law enforcement to straighten out that mess but most people won’t do that because they show up with tactical body armor and assault rifles.
—edit—
Contrary to TFA they did indeed have a warrant to seize Cedar…a dubious warrant maybe but a warrant they did have.
I don't know about other people, but I'm happy to admit that I'm unfamiliar with agriculture and 4H programs.
> The article literally says the girl had a breakdown _at_ the auction.
The Sacramento Bee article linked by the Guardian article says that they expressed their wish to not sell the goat before the auction.
"Before the auction began, the family asked to back out but fair officials refused, saying fair rules prohibited that and put the goat up for auction,..."
That sounds like a civilian dispute. Did the owner/family had the right to back out of the auction at that point or did they not? How can a law enforcement agent become a judge to decide on this?
On the day of. Most auctions don’t permit this. (Again, livestock auctions have a lot of law around them. Their orderly functioning underlies several states’ economies. Teaching this is sort of 4-H’a point.)
> can a law enforcement agent become a judge to decide on this?
They got a warrant [1]
[1] https://dig.abclocal.go.com/kgo/PDF/2022-08-31-Complaint.pdf page 9
Well this person certainly learned an important lesson about where meat comes from.
> They got a warrant.
By misrepresenting facts. And then the warrant didn't authorise them to hand the goat over to some other third party.
This is alleged. Broadly speaking, a complaint alleging a “sham warrant” admits it’s on thin ice.
> the warrant didn't authorise them to hand the goat over to some other third party
The complaint alleges this. It’s a question of civil procedure.