Welcome to IllinoisToilet.com, a site dedicated to exposing the corruption of what was once the great state of Illinois.

Illinois was once touted as having one of the best humane laws in the country. But laws are only as good as the enforcement of those laws, and under Governor JB Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Illinois humane laws have become worthless.

Shocking animal abuse that blatantly violates Illinois law is being protected by the agencies and law enforcement that we look to for enforcement. These include the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the Illinois State Police. 

Why is Ogle County Called the “Illinois Toilet?”

Illinois’ worst corruption is in Ogle County - aka “The Toilet,” where animals are mercilessly brutalized, injured and killed for entertainment and profit in an event called “steer tailing.” These criminals are protected by a corrupt state’s attorney, sheriff and county board - who are Republicans, and corrupt state officials who are Democrats, including Governor JB Pritzker. Ogle County truly is involved in bipartisan corruption.

For years, Ogle County State’s Attorney Mike Rock and Sheriff Brian VanVickle have refused to prosecute the laws they are paid to enforce, and the County Board is silent. SHARK has regularly provided the county with clear video evidence since 2022, and as recently as October 2025, but crimes against animals are ignored, regardless of how much evidence we provide.

Ogle County is the most cruel, corrupt county SHARK has ever encountered anywhere in out more than three decades of animal protection work. But besides the terrible abuse of animals that occurs there, Ogle County has also shone a light on the enormous corruption of the entire state of Illinois. 

What is Steer Tailing?

Steve tailing involves a single steer being released from a chute. The steer is chased next to a wall by a contestant on horseback.

The contestant reaches down and grabs the running steer by the tail. The contestant wraps the steer’s tail around his leg for leverage, and then rides his horse forward and away from the steer. This pulls the steer around, sending him violently crashing to the ground.

Degloving is a regular occurrence in steer tailing. Sharp spurs that are banned in sanctioned rodeos are allowed in steer tailing. Sharp spurs can cut horses open, but they cut steers’ tails, which leads to an injury called degloving.

Degloving occurs when the outer sheath of the steer’s tail is ripped off the backbone. The tail is an extension of the spine, so degloving is tremendously painful, and puts the steer at risk of infection that can be fatal.

Steers suffer head injuries from having their heads slammed into the ground. These injuries may include broken horns. Because a broken horn or other skull injury typically doesn’t affect the steer’s mobility, and because the steer tailers don’t

care about the suffering of their victims, steers with even the most obvious horn injuries are typically reused over and over and over.

This steer, who we nicknamed Little Ferdinand, had his horn broken on his first run of the day, and the injury was very clear, especially since Little Ferdinand demonstrated his pain by tossing his head. Everyone saw that he was hurt.

Nevertheless, Little Ferdinand was run again, and again, and again, and over and over and over, fourteen times after he broke his horn. Little Ferdinand is just one example of the repeated abuses these animals suffer after they are already injured. This isn’t just a violation of the law, it’s a violation of any concept of common decency.

Steers have their legs broken, and there is no veterinary care. That is a violation of Illinois humane laws.

In a sanctioned rodeo, an animal is typically run only once. In these private, unsanctioned steer tailing events, the same small group of steers are run over and over and over, with the intent to send each them crashing to the ground every single time.

The steers are overworked to the point of exhaustion. Overworking an animal in Illinois is illegal.

Because they are exhausted, the steers are electrocuted to torment them to keep moving. Torment is illegal in Illinois. When they can no longer get up, they are tormented even further by disturbed people who see the steers’ exhaustion as an opportunity to impose more abuse.

Completely exhausted animals lack the strength and balance to protect themselves, and they break more easily. When the animals are injured, they have not be provided with veterinary care, which is another crime.

Who Provides the Victims of Steer Tailing?

For every steer tailing event, a few dozen steers are rented from Meyer Livestock, an unethical livestock supplier in Bernard, Iowa. The steer tailers deal with Meyer Livestock, which is located more than 120 miles away, because no self-respecting Illinois supplier wants anything to do with this abuse. 

Horse are Also Abused

Horses are also abused. Horses are beaten, slapped, punched, whipped, harshly spurred and reined. Both horses and steers are injured and killed, and the injured are denied veterinary care.

Horses are raked with sharp spurs, sometimes to the point of being cut open. Horses are ruined by the criminal misuse of leverage bits that mangle horses’ sensitive mouths.

Horses are slapped, punched and whipped by untrained, undisciplined, and often drunk riders who blame the horses for the rider’s own mistakes.

Horses are not just abused, but also killed. This victim suffered a broken leg when a steer fell on it. Because there was no veterinarian for care, the gravely injured horse was put in a trailer, with no supports or restraints, and towed back from where he was brought - Polk County, Iowa, more than 250 miles away.

While his death was assured from the moment of the leg break, his end came neither quickly or humanely. Regardless of the years of video documentation SHARK has made available to Ogle County authorities, no charges have ever been filed for the abuse of horses.

What Does the Illinois Humane Care for Animals Act Say?

The animal abuse in steer tailing is disturbing, but it could be stopped with just two sentences of the Illinois Humane Care for Animals Act: No person or owner may beat, cruelly treat, torment, starve, overwork or otherwise abuse any animal and Each owner shall provide for each of his or her animals: veterinary care when needed to prevent suffering; and humane care and treatment.

In other words, this abuse is already illegal according to laws that have been on the books for decades.

The law is simple and straightforward. Violations of state humane laws should result in charges. Given SHARK’s clear video documentation, people should be prosecuted and convicted, and the abuse would stop. That’s how it should work.

But corrupt State’s Attorney Mike Rock and Sheriff Brian VanVickle refuse to do their jobs.

Ogle County’s State’s Attorney and Sheriff Are Well Aware of the Crimes

Detective Chad Gallick wrote a report after SHARK presented Gallick with video documentation from multiple Ogle County steer tailing events, and that report shows that Gallick recognized that this was illegal abuse. Here are just a few excerpts from Detective Gallick’s report:

Approximately 30 to 40 cattle were used during the rodeo. The same cattle were run multiple times during the rodeo, and I did not see the cattle receive any veterinarian care.

I observed a brown cow, with horns, that was knocked to the ground
When the cow returned to its feet I observed the cow to have a rear left leg injury. The cow was not putting any weight on the rear left leg. The leg did not move, and the cow appeared to be dragging his rear left leg.

I observed a brown cow with a broken right horn. The cow was run several more times, and did not have veterinarian care at any time.

I observed a male hit a horse, in the face...

Several workers corralled the cows into the chute, and were observed to be using wood poles, and electric prods to poke at the cattle.

The workers corralling cows can be seen using wooden and metal poles, along with plastic paddles to poke and hit the livestock. Ia lso observed, at various times, workers and participants whipping the livestock, and horses.

We’ve posted Detective Gallick’s report, in its entirety, on this website. Click here to read Detective Gallick's full report. Detective Gallick’s report was a roadmap for a cruelty prosecution, but it was ignored by State’s Attorney John Rock, and Sheriff VanVickle never gave Detective Gallick an opportunity to investigate any more rodeo animal abuse.

In event after event every summer, year after year for more than four years, Rock and VanVickle have done absolutely nothing to stop the abuse, and so the abuse continues. While other counties in Illinois - Will County, McHenry County, Boone County, DeKalb County and others have brought criminal charges resulting in convictions, or have strengthened their own county ordinances, Ogle County State Attorney Mike Rock and Sheriff Brian Van Vickle have done nothing whatsoever.

Add to this a fourteen-member county board that will accept any excuse for inaction, no matter how ridiculous, and you have devolution of Ogle County from a fine country environment - to a toilet of corruption. 

Governor JB Pritzker Knows About the Crimes, and Protects the Criminals

SHARK Campaigns Manager Jodie Wiederkehr has personally shown Illinois Governor JB Pritzker video evidence of illegal steer tailing animal abuse - twice. Pritzker has done nothing.

Instead, Pritzker and his Democrat allies - the Attorney General’s Office, the Department of Agriculture, the State Police, and the Democrat-controlled legislature - have propped up what would otherwise be an easily cured case of small-town corruption.