Animal rights activist Bill Crain is arrested in 2010 in Fredon for refusing to leave a restricted area during the first day of the bear hunt. Crain heads to a municipal court today on an obstruction of the administration of law charge from his last arrest during the hunt in December.SUSSEX COUNTY — The animal-rights activist who has been arrested annually in protest of the New Jersey bear hunt will get his day in a Sussex County court today.
Bill Crain, 69, was arrested Dec. 3 and charged with obstruction of the administration of law, according to authorities. He is expected to head to trial in the Green Joint Municipal Court at 3 p.m. today.
Crain’s paid hundreds of dollars in fines for arrests in the 2010 and 2011 bear-hunt protests – but this one he’s fighting, said Dan Perez, his attorney.
“He vigorously disputes the charge,” Perez said this morning. “This year he’s fighting it – because he’s innocent. There’s nothing prohibiting a citizen from walking down the road.”
A few minutes before the first bear was brought in at the Whittingham check station in Andover, Crain began walking down the center of the road in front of the station, wearing a handwritten sign stating that “Mother Nature is crying.”
The City College of New York psychology professor had left the area designated for protesters across from the check station, but was walking in the direction past the station.
Even as he walked, he braced himself as several state troopers briskly approached, grabbed him, and walked him to a cruiser. He didn't resist. While troopers leaned him over the trunk of a state trooper car, Crain told assembled media about his opposition to the hunt.
“We need to show more compassion to animals,” he said at the time, before being put into the car and driven away.
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