Last Chance for Animals Condemns Shocking Cruelty at Salinas Bull-Riding Event

Viral footage underscores urgent need for Los Angeles City Council to reintroduce and pass rodeo ban ordinance

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Last Chance for Animals today condemned the apparent abuse captured in disturbing video from a bull-riding event at the Salinas Sports Complex on August 1. The footage shows a rider being violently thrown and seriously injured, followed by several individuals restraining the bull and repeatedly kicking, striking and stomping on the animal while he was down. The Salinas Police Department and SPCA Monterey County are investigating the incident. While the California Rodeo Association (CRA) has attempted to distance itself from the event, this incident reflects the inherent risks and cruelty at bull-riding events, including those the CRA sanctions.

The horrifying scene in Salinas demonstrates why Los Angeles cannot continue delaying meaningful protections for animals exploited in rodeo events. The City Council allowed its proposed rodeo ordinance to expire in July without bringing it to a final vote, even as Professional Bull Riders (PBR) is advertising an "Unleash the Beast" event at Crypto.com Arena on February 26–27, 2027. Los Angeles now faces the prospect of another major bull-riding spectacle entering the city while the animals involved remain without protection.

"The footage from Salinas is sickening," said Chris DeRose, founder and president of Last Chance for Animals. "A frightened and exhausted bull was surrounded, restrained and beaten while lying defenseless on the ground. This was not sport, tradition or entertainment. It was cruelty carried out in front of a crowd, and it is a painful reminder of what can happen when animals are treated as disposable props for human amusement."

The Los Angeles rodeo ban ordinance would have prohibited harmful animal-exhibition activities commonly associated with rodeos, including bull and bucking horse riding, calf roping, steer wrestling and other practices involving the roping, throwing or forced restraint of animals. The revised ordinance focused on the inherently dangerous activities themselves rather than simply banning any event that used the word "rodeo."

In December 2023, the City Council unanimously directed the City Attorney to revise the ordinance to address concerns about its potential effects on culturally significant equestrian traditions. The resulting language allowed equestrian, cultural and community events to continue so long as they did not include prohibited activities such as riding bucking animals, roping animals or wrestling them to the ground. Those changes protected cultural celebrations, horsemanship demonstrations, music and other traditions without creating a blanket exemption for animal cruelty.

The City Attorney submitted the revised ordinance in July 2024. It was later reassigned to the Council's Arts, Parks, Libraries, and Community Enrichment Committee, but the committee did not advance it for a final vote. After years in the legislative process, Council File 20-1575 expired in July 2026 under City Council policy. Its expiration erased years of public testimony, legal drafting and compromise without requiring councilmembers to take a final recorded vote on the ordinance itself.

"The Los Angeles City Council's failure to finish this work is indefensible," DeRose said. "Councilmembers unanimously agreed that action was necessary, requested a carefully tailored ordinance and added protections for legitimate cultural and equestrian events. Then they allowed the legislation to die through inaction. The victims of that failure are the animals who will continue to be shocked, roped, terrorized and forced to perform for entertainment.

"The Council must immediately reintroduce this ordinance, hold a public hearing and bring it to a vote before PBR arrives in Los Angeles in February," DeRose continued. "Los Angeles should not wait for its own tragedy to appear in a viral video before deciding that cruelty has no place in our city. The rodeo ban must be reintroduced and passed."

About LCA

Founded in 1984, Last Chance for Animals is an international, non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating animal exploitation through education, investigations, legislation, and media attention. LCA believes that animals are highly sentient creatures who exist for their own reasons independent of their service to humans; they should not be made to suffer for the latter.  LCA opposes the use of animals in food and clothing production, scientific experimentation, and entertainment and promotes a cruelty-free lifestyle and the ascription of rights to non-human beings.

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SOURCE Last Chance For Animals