A Raw-Milk Raid Leads to a Special Thanksgiving

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Gary Oaks' Ohio Department of Agriculture witness statement

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and the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Joanne Miller thinks there were about eight agents there, plus the four Cincinnati police. As the agents began confiscating the milk both from the truck and from a few shareholders, and loading it into an ODA van, she says, they told objecting shareholders, "What's happening here is not your concern."

"All Kinds of Laws"

This upset the shareholders, who began shouting that the milk belonged to them, that the agents had no right to it. One of the shareholders stood on the trailer's tailgate and waved her shareholder documents at the agents, who ignored her.

Sensing the situation might be getting out of hand, the Cincinnati cops called for reinforcements, and two additional cruisers arrived. In the meantime, several plainclothes agents moved to separate Gary Oaks from his shareholders. For the soft-spoken 43-year-old, who grew up on a Mississippi farm and had only once in his life even been stopped for speeding, it was all becoming a terrifying blur. They moved him toward one of the unmarked cars and ordered him in. "They asked me what I was doing. One said, 'You're in a lot of trouble. You've broken all kinds of laws.'"

Oaks didn't know what to say. "I was ignorant. I didn't know it was illegal to drink milk. I hate to sound ignorant."

Then they moved him from that car into a second car, and the routine started over again, except more intensively. One agent was shouting from the back, and another in the front was demanding that he write something that sounded to him like a confession that he was selling unpasteurized milk. He began feeling ill. "They were telling me what to write, that I wouldn't sell milk." He believes he started to write something, but can't remember what.

"We Are 911"

The ODA produces a "Witness Statement" with block printing, signed by Oaks and an ODA investigator: "We run a cow share business in KY. Sell shares of cows to people for $75 a share.…" It includes a few more details about the maintenance fee and delivery schedule and concludes, "Whole milk is not pasteurized."

When Oaks emerged from the car, several shareholders said he looked terrible and asked the officers to call 911. "We are 911," one of the officers stated. A shareholder decided to call 911 on her cell phone, seeking an ambulance. The agents moved Gary into a third car. He told them he was feeling awful, got out of the car, and slumped to the ground. An ambulance arrived and took him to a hospital. His blood pressure had soared to more than 200-over-156. "They were shocked I wasn't dead," Oaks recalls. He was released later that day, apparently without having suffered a heart attack.

An ODA spokesperson says, "Our officials questioned Mr. Oaks, so did federal officials. They were trying to learn about what he was doing, what the substance was, and why it was being brought into Ohio." Officials from the Kentucky Public Health Dept. didn't respond to questions.

Volunteers for Milking

Oaks continued to feel ill over the next few days. He had nightmares of "police and agents coming out from behind bushes and buildings." He couldn't milk the cows. A few days later, the feelings worsened. "I was choking, I couldn't get my breath." His wife took him back to the hospital, and this time he was admitted for several days.

The one piece of good news was that his shareholders had sprung into action. More than 100 met within days at a local church and tried to figure out how they could help the farm and the Oaks family. The most immediate issue was the cows these shareholders owned—they needed to be milked twice a day, and most of the city-folk shareholders knew little about cows beyond the fact that their milk arrived in bottles every week.

Fortunately, three shareholders who lived close to the Double O Farms had also been farmers, and at one of several meetings the shareholders held, these individuals volunteered to do the milking.