More busts: shredding the invisibility cloak over cockfighting

Seven-year SHARK campaign,  with help from the Humane Farming Association & Animal Wellness Action,  appears to be paying off

SAN ANTONIO,  Texas––“I’ve been at the sheriff’s office since 2017.  We’ve probably dealt with five of these,  which isn’t that many,”  Bexar County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigation Division deputy chief Nancy Sanford admitted to local media after busting a May 11,  2024 cockfight on the southern outskirts of San Antonio.

“We believe there are probably a lot more going on,”  Sanford admitting,  “but they can be clandestine out here in the rural areas.”

The Showing Animals Respect & Kindness [SHARK] drone squadron and tip line,  as it happens,  backed by the Humane Farming Association,  have since 2017 been shredding the invisibility cloak long protecting cockfighting.

Exposure brings hints of change

Adding to the difficulty of finding cockfights in rural locations has been frequent indifference and evident corruption on the part of many rural sheriff’s departments,  especially in the states of Kentucky,  Mississippi,  Oklahoma,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania,   and Tennessee.

This is far from ended,  but intensive exposure seems now to be bringing hints of change.

Animal Wellness Action,  often coordinating actions with SHARK in recent years,   ensures that cop shops busting cockfights,  including rural sheriff’s departments,  get media kudos and political backup.

Every animal fighting bust is for Animal Wellness Action an opportunity to promote the Fighting Inhumane Gambling & High-Risk Animal Trafficking (FIGHT) Act now before Congress,  the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate versions of which are H.R. 2742 and S. 1529.

Showing them how

The SHARK/Animal Wellness Action partnership has coincided with a marked increase in the frequency and sweep of cockfighting busts around the U.S. in early 2024.

But many of the busts have had nothing directly to do with either SHARK or Animal Wellness Action.  Rather,  at least some of them result from others,  including law enforcement,  learning from SHARK videos have to detect cockfights,  recognize cockfighting locations when seen from the air,  and plan busts using drone intelligence.

Other cockfighting busts result from law enforcement,  seeing fellow agencies making busts that also lead to seizures of drugs and weapons,  becoming emboldened about taking on locally well-connected “chicken fighters” previously considered to be not worth the police time and effort required to win only misdemeanor citations.

SHARK doesn’t do anonymous,  but inspires anonymous others

Last but not least,  private citizens fed up with cockfighting in their neighborhoods are also becoming emboldened about responding to it.

An anonymous tip led to the San Antonio bust,  Sanford said.

Showing Animals Respect & Kindness does not do “anonymous,”  and was not in or near San Antonio when the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigation Division.

Animal Wellness Action became involved after suspected cockfight host Paul Junior Morales was arrested at the scene in possession of weapons.

Thanks to the tipster,  Sanford said,  “We were able to get surveillance out here early,  do our homework,  obtain a search warrant for this location,  and subsequently raid the location with our marked units,  and our covert and organized crime division units.”

200 gamecocks,  guns,  & drugs

The raid impounded approximately 200 gamecocks from cages and vehicles,  “a couple of guns,”   according to Sanford,  and “a little bit of drugs in a vehicle,”  also impounded.

Forty-seven suspected cockfighting attendees were cited and released.

“It was early,”  said Sanford.  “Probably more people would have been coming,  but we felt like we didn’t want any of the roosters to get harmed.  So we felt like we should go in and raid it sooner than later.”

“If you earn money from cockfighting,  it is a state jail felony,”  explained Sanford.  “A state jail felony is up to two years,  anywhere from 180 days to two years in prison.  And the fine is $10,000.”

63 arrests at Goliad County cockfight

Forty miles south of San Antonio,  on the same day,  the Goliad County Sheriff’s Office,  busted a cockfight,  making 63 arrests,  seizing 45 vehicles,  eight trailers,  and “many guns,”  Coy Slavik of South Texas News reported.

Assisting were the Bee County,  Refugio County,  and Jackson County sheriff’s offices,  the Beeville Police Department,  and Victoria County Animal Control.

The San Antonio and Goliad County busts were the third in the region in 2024,  recalled San Antonio News reporter Priscilla Aguirre.

“The Potter County Sheriff’s Office seized 170 birds and euthanized 13 in one of the largest cockfighting busts in Texas history in February 2024,”  Aguirre said.

Roosters escaped

One day earlier and a state farther west,  a Bernalillo County,  New Mexico sheriff’s investigation brought charges of cockfighting and contributing to the delinquency of a minor filed against Luis Aguilar-Ibarra,  45.

“The investigation into the alleged cockfighting began in early February 2024,”  reported KOAT television news,  of Albuquerque.

What triggered the February investigation,  KOAT did not say,  but it apparently escalated after roosters escaped from the property in mid-March 2024.

Had photos of drugs on phone

On that occasion,  KOAT continued,  “Court documents show the deputy saw more than 100 roosters,”  some “with a wide range of injuries.  Additionally, a fire pit was found with dead roosters and hens burned in it,”  on rented land adjacent to a local elementary school.

“A search warrant of the property was executed on April 3,  2024,”  followed by execution of a warrant to search Aguilar-Ibarra’s telephone.

“Court records show six videos on Aguilar-Ibarra’s phone showed his 15-year-old son and him holding roosters to make them engage in a cockfight.  His phone also had photos of injured roosters and performance-enhancing drugs for cockfighting purposes,”  KOAT said.

Like father,  like son

Kentucky State Police credited Showing Animals Respect & Kindness with relaying information leading to second degree cruelty to animals charges against 14 alleged cockfighters,  including father-and-son alleged cockfighting hosts Leo Harris,  59,  and Christopher Harris,  39,  in Casey County on May 6,  2024.

“SHARK has been critical of the Kentucky State Police in past years for not acting on information of staged illegal fights,”  SHARK founder Steve Hindi told Christopher Leach of the Lexington Herald-Leader,  “but we have nothing but praise for the agency and its officers for busting this cockfight in Casey County.”

Drugs,  guns,  & gamecocks in rural Washington

Several earlier cockfighting busts have only just come to media notice.

“In March 2024,”  wrote Questen Inghram for the May 14,  2024 edition of the Yakima Herald-Republic,  “20 search warrants were served in the Yakima area alone in an operation targeting the prison gang La Nuestra Familia.

“When agents made arrests,  they seized 37 guns, cocaine,  methamphetamine,  and more than 8,000 fentanyl pills,  along with hundreds of roosters from Zillah and Outlook,”  Inghram reported.

“Attempting to kill witnesses”

“Thirty-four people were indicted and accused of a variety of crimes,  including attempting to kill witnesses.  Two of them were indicted on unlawful animal fighting charges.  The joint federal-state operation, led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives,  began in 2018 and involved over 350 law enforcement personnel across the state and in Louisiana,  Colorado,  and Arkansas.

Washington State Gambling Commission special agent supervisor Ronnie Cooper “said local police often are bogged down with other crimes and there is a sentiment among the public that because this illegal activity is often conducted in rural areas, it isn’t affecting their community,”  Inghram paraphrased.

But emphasized Cooper,   “It isn’t just animal fighting.  It’s drugs and other crimes,”  exactly as Showing Animals Respect & Kindness and Animal Wellness Action have warned for years.

Cockfight in a 2-car garage

Underscoring that point,  a February 1,  2024 raid by the Plumstead Township Police Department on a relatively small cockfight held in a two-car garage in Doylestown,  Pennsylvania failed to nab about 25 attendees,  but impounded 49 gamefowl,  two of them reportedly injured,  and brought one arrest.

Suspect Cesar Cordova-Morales,  21,  of Oxford,  Pennsylvania,  “was carrying a satchel containing several bottles of steroids,  cutting instruments,  string,  artificial metal spurs,  spur covers,  and other items commonly used in cockfighting,”  a Bucks County SPCA statement said.

Shears & Blades

“According to court documents,”  updated John Anastasi of the Bucks County Herald on March,  2024,   another suspect,  Mara Guadalupe Duran,  50,  employed by Shears & Blades Designs,  a hair salon,  “was arraigned on 46 counts of felony animal fighting for the owning,  possessing or selling of animals for fighting,  plus 46 counts of neglect of animals for lack of sustenance and water,  which is a summary offense, and other violations.

“The charges mirror those filed on March 3,   2024,  against Manfid Duran,  49,”  Anastasi wrote.

Manfid Duran was caught at a traffic stop.

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