The owner of a butcher shop in Tooele County, Utah, is facing aggravated animal cruelty charges after being accused of cutting the hoof off a conscious steer without first sedating it, according to charging documents and federal inspection records.
The alleged incident took place on November 5, 2025, at Tooele Valley Meat in Grantsville, where a steer escaped the slaughter process and got stuck in a gate. Court documents revealed that the shop owner is 78-year-old Ed Roberts. When the steer got stuck in the gate, documents stated that Roberts instructed an employee to retrieve a knife.
An inspector with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service was on site and warned Roberts that “severing the hoof from a conscious animal was not acceptable” and that the steer “needed to be stunned first.” According to prosecutors, “Despite these warnings, the defendant pressed forward and severed the hoof.”
According to KUTV, charging documents state that “the cutting off of the extremity was undertaken intentionally and without using any procedure which would have minimized the pain and agony felt by the animal.”
A USDA Notice of Suspension issued the same day provides an inspector’s detailed account of the incident. Inspectors documented that the steer suffered a compound fracture after becoming stuck in the gate. When Roberts stated he was going to “cut its hoof off,” inspectors reiterated that “you can’t cut the hoof off a living animal.” The report states that the request to stun the animal first “was disregarded.”
According to the USDA report, another inspector observed Roberts “utilize a knife to cut off the hoof at the approximate level of the fetlock while the animal remained conscious.” After the hoof was removed, the steer was later stunned and rendered unconscious in the stun box.
As a result, FSIS immediately suspended inspection services at the plant, determining that the establishment had handled livestock inhumanely in violation of the Federal Meat Inspection Act and the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
Tooele Valley Meat describes itself as a butcher shop that sells beef, pork, lamb, goat, chicken breasts, and a variety of sausages and jerky. When asked about the charge, a spokesperson for Tooele Valley Meat told KUTV, “It’s all over and done with. We have an inspector here every day.”
