Vegan food truck owner gets threats over Las Vegas post
The owner of a vegan food truck in northeastern Pennsylvania has sparked outrage after writing dismissively of the deaths of 'meat eaters in the Las Vegas massacre.
Delinda Jensen, 60, tells the Times Leader of Wilkes-Barre that she has received death threats and abusive comments, and was forced to close down her business in the wake of her post Monday night.
Jensen wrote: 'Yes I am jaded. Fifty nine meat eaters dead. How many animals will live because of this?" In a second comment, she used an expletive to say she didn't care about "carnists."'
Eating her words: Delinda Jensen (left), the owner of the Mother Nature Vegan Cuisine food truck in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, was forced to go out of business after posting a message on Facebook dismissing the deaths of 'meat eaters' in the Las Vegas massacre
Firestorm unleashed: Jensen, 60, faced immediate backlash after posting this status update less than 24 hours after 58 concertgoers, who she dubbed 'carnists,' were murdered by Stephen Paddock, who also killed himself
Too little, too late: Jensen realized her error and tried to clarify her original post in a follow-up, but that did not help matters
Her post came less than 24 hours after Stephen Craig Paddock, 64, opened fire from his Mandalay Bay hotel room on concertgoers attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival on the Las Vegas Strip, killing 58 and injuring more than 500 others before turning the gun on himself as a SWAT team closed in.
Jensen and her son and business partner, 28-year-old Kyle Jensen, have been laying low in the wake of the controversy unleashed by her post.
Hunkered down: Jensen and her son and business partner, 28-year-old Kyle (pictured), have deleted their social media accounts and have been laying low since Monday
They have installed a security camera outside their Wilkes-Barre home and have made several calls to police because they feared for their safety after having threats and obscenities hurled at them by passersby.
Jensen, a former adjunct history professor at Maryland University, has deleted her Facebook account and hidden away her bright-green food truck, but she says that did nothing to stop the verbal abuse.
The 60-year-old tells the paper she's sorry for the post and that 'no one deserves to die like that.'
'Was it poorly written? Absolutely. Do I regret it? Yes. I am so sorry I wrote that,' she said Thursday. 'Meat eaters or not, no one deserves to die like that. I wasn’t celebrating the death of those people. That’s not how vegans think — we are non-violent.'
Jensen noted that she wrote a second post after facing backlash to clarify her position, saying she 'did not delight' in the deaths of the victims, but by then it was too late. The follow-up read, in part: 'the consequence of this incident is, at least fewer animals will be consumed.'
The food truck entrepreneur lamented no longer having no avenue to apologize to the victims of the Las Vegas slaughter because she is afraid to go back on Facebook amid the firestorm unleashed by her original status update.
Jensen, who is a recent convert to veganism, explained that she was trying to make the point that people who consume meat are responsible for the torture and slaughter of countless animals each year.
Epiphany: Jensen, a widow and former history professor, turned to veganism two years ago because she came to believe that eating meat was unethical
Her food truck, Mother Nature Vegan Cuisine, was offering people a healthy alternative to meat, according to Jensen, but as a result of what she described as 'a moment of stupidity,' her business has been destroyed.
Jensen had lost her husband to a suicide and says she has no other means of earning a living.
Her son, who has a degree in culinary arts, is optimistic that he will be able to find another job and says he is not angry at his mother for her outburst.