UPDATE 16:31: The Schumachers’ press release calls In Defense of Animals “Violent Eco-Terrorists.” Matt Rossell from IDA says, “I was blown away by how inflammatory the press release was. I’m challenging the TV media, if it’s to run with this story, to prove that this story has some truth to it. Where is the mall owner who feels like he has been targeted? And if we want to talk about the violence surrounding this issue, have the TV stations ever considered showing some of the footage of the animals being killed?”

Rossell says he plans to speak to seek the opinion of a libel attorney about Schumacher’s characterization of IDA. “There is nothing more inflammatory in this day and age than to be called a terrorist,” he says.

ORIGINAL POST, 15:56: Gregg Schumacher is closing his shop for good—and is issuing press releases on the subject to a few local media outlets (although, for some reason, not to us). SCHUMACHER: Like a little cuddly animal, himself.

Schumacher blames a “targeted intimidation campaign” aimed at mall management since his announcement of eviction “evacuation” in November, for the fact that nobody else in Portland is willing to rent him space.

“There is just no truth to that, whatsoever,” Matt Rossell of In Defense of Animals tells Blog Town—Rossell has organized the weekly protests outside Schumacher’s store. “If there is a sustained intimidation campaign, he must be orchestrating it himself. We had no idea where he was going, but I think his reputation precedes him, and my hope is, that the community has been educated to the point where it is not prepared to tolerate this kind of cruelty anymore.”

“He makes the boy who cried wolf seem like honest Abe,” adds Rossell. “He’s been a little over the top.”

“I still haven’t got copies of the documentation,” responds Schumacher’s spokesman, Dan McWilliams, of the “sustained hate campaign”. “But that was more than just heresay. We’re not making it up.”