Group Says Circus Shows Reckless Disregard for Performers

For Immediate Release:
June 25, 2004

Contact:
Lisa Wathne 757-622-7382

Norfolk, Va.-- Today, PETA fired off a letter to Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, urging her to file charges of manslaughter in the second degree against the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for its negligent actions that led to the death of acrobat Dessi Espana, who fell 30 feet to her death during a Ringling performance last month. The letter follows PETA’s recent request to St. Paul City Attorney Manuel Cervantes that he investigate and file appropriate charges stemming from the incident. Although Cervantes never replied to PETA, he reportedly told the media that the accident was a "tragic thing" but refused to take action against Ringling for failing to provide a safety net for Espana, despite the fact that the circus violated a Minnesota statute that requires "network, or other sufficient means of protection from falling or other accident" for all acrobatic performances.

"Ringling has repeatedly failed to protect both animal and human performers," says PETA Director Debbie Leahy. "To actually market the circus with slogans like ‘Tempting Fate Daily!’ on one hand and then claim that this woman’s death was an unforeseeable fluke on the other is yet another example of Ringling’s well-worn ploy of issuing ‘sucker’ statements to the media in the face of adversity."

PETA’s letter to Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner follows. For more information, visit Circuses.com.

June 25, 2004

The Honorable Susan Gaertner, Esq.
County Attorney
Office of the Ramsey County Attorney
50 W. Kellogg Blvd., Ste. 315
St. Paul, MN 55102-1657

Re: Death of Ms. Dessi Espana

Dear Ms. Gaertner,

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the world’s largest animal rights organization, with more than 800,000 members and supporters dedicated to the protection of animals. For many years, PETA has been aware of the deplorable record of animal abuse perpetrated by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (Ringling) against the animals it forces to perform in its circus. Now, we have learned about the May 22, 2004, death of Ms. Dessi Espana, a human performer with Ringling, apparently caused by Ringling’s culpable negligence. The purpose of this letter is to request that you file charges against Ringling and its responsible employees and agents for manslaughter in the second degree pursuant to Minnesota Code Section 609.205.

According to published reports, Ms. Espana was killed when, while performing aerial ballet by twirling on chiffon scarves, she fell 30 feet headfirst onto a concrete floor at the Xcel Energy Center. As you know, Minnesota Code Section 624.64 requires Ringling to provide, at all acrobatic performances, "sufficient means of protection from falling or other accident." Contrary to this mandate, Ringling apparently failed to provide any such safety device, resulting in Ms. Espana’s death. A standard safety net would likely have saved her life, as was the case when a trapeze performer escaped injury by falling into a net during a Ringling performance just one month prior to this tragedy. Ringling cannot reasonably contend that a fatal fall was an unforeseeable consequence of an aerial performance without safety netting. In fact, Ringling acknowledges the risk—and even uses it as a marketing ploy—in a promotional statement it uses to describe its performances: "Tempting Fate Daily."

Code Section 609.205(1) provides that a person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree if, "by the person’s culpable negligence … the person creates an unreasonable risk, and consciously takes chances of causing death or great bodily harm to another." In order to sustain a manslaughter conviction, Ringling’s act must be the proximate cause of death, without the intervention of an efficient independent force in which Ringling did not participate or which it could not reasonably have foreseen. State v. Schaub, 231 Minn. 512, 517 (1950). Ringling’s culpability fits squarely within this statute.

Ringling’s failure to provide the required safety equipment was undeniably the proximate cause of Ms. Espana’s death. But for the lack of that equipment, she would not have died from her fall. Moreover, Ringling cannot reasonably contend that a fatal fall was an unforeseeable consequence of an aerial performance without safety netting. As I point out above, Ringling uses that risk as a marketing ploy.

Further, Ringling has admitted that performances of the type Ms. Espana was engaging in are acts routinely staged without nets or other safety devices. Such intentional conduct, coupled with an admission of the risks that result from it—which an ordinary and reasonably prudent person would, in any case, recognize as involving a probability of injury—overwhelmingly establish the culpable negligence that would warrant prosecution in this matter. (Please note that Ms. Espana’s awareness of the risk involved in performing without a net does not relieve Ringling from criminal liability for the dangerous condition it created that ultimately caused her death, a legal position recently affirmed in a case argued by your office. State v. Hofer, 614 N.W.2d 734 (2000).)

This tragedy occurred at a matinee performance. Ringling disregarded safety devices required by law and common sense, and as a result, a performer lost her life and an arena full of children and families watched in horror what the man who had been holding the spotlight on Ms. Espana called the worst accident he had seen in 27 years of lighting events. We respectfully suggest that Ringling’s conscious disregard of safety that resulted in the death of a performer is exactly the type of culpable negligence that Section 609.205(1) is designed to address and prevent and ask that your office further investigate and prosecute this matter.

Thank you for your consideration of these issues.

Very truly yours,
Jeffrey S. Kerr