(Beth Clifton collage)
Chambers was appointed by former governor who favored legalizing cockfighting
MORGANTOWN, Kentucky––Showing Animals Respect & Kindness founder Steve Hindi has a theory that Butler County, Kentucky district attorney Blake Ross Chambers should do the job he is sworn to do, including obtaining warrants to bust cockfights.
Catch is, busting cockfights is not necessarily the job that former Kentucky governor Matt Bevin appointed Chambers to do, back on May 4, 2017.
“On the morning of Monday, June 10, 2024,” Hindi wrote to Chambers on June 13, 2024, “I called Kentucky State Police Post 3 to report an active, illegal cockfight at what is known as the Shaker Hill cockfight pit, located at coordinates 37.3736, -86.6073 in Butler County.
State trooper said Chambers refused to seek a warrant
“After my initial conversation with a dispatcher, I spoke to trooper Kevin Mayfield,” Hindi explained to Chambers.
The alleged cockfight was under surveillance by Showing Animals Respect & Kindness.
“My communications included sending trooper Mayfield three images of activity on the suspect property, which I have attached in this email,” Hindi continued to Chambers.
“According to trooper Mayfield, you refused to provide a search warrant,” Hindi said.
“Given the history of this property, and the fact that it is, and never has been anything but a cockfighting pit, I believe those images were more than adequate evidence for a warrant.
“Shaker Hill building serves no purpose other than cockfighting”
“The building for the Shaker Hill pit serves no purpose other than cockfighting,” Hindi charged.
“Our first contact with this pit was on June 6, 2020,” Hindi told Chambers, “well after you were appointed to the position of Commonwealth Attorney for the 38th Judicial Circuit.
“We have undercover video evidence shot inside Shaker Hill,” Hindi mentioned, much of it posted to the Showing Animals Respect & Kindness web site.
(See https://youtu.be/GlcwLm8tNF0, https://youtu.be/19jA7tGE2vU, and https://youtu.be/Ae-2ENwkR8g.)
“Illegal cockfighting, gambling, & the presence of children”
The Showing Animals Respect & Kindness undercover video “documents illegal cockfighting, illegal gambling, and the presence of children,” Hindi summarized.
“Shaker Hill was an illegal cockfight pit long before our first contact in 2020,” Hindi emphasized to Chambers.
“We have recorded audio files of conversations with police,” also posted to the Showing Animals Respect & Kindness web site as part of the videos linked above, “in which they admit knowledge of Shaker Hill as an illegal cockfight pit.
Subject of media reports since 2020
“This pit is so well known,” Hindi reminded Chambers, “that it has been the subject of media reports since 2020. You can see one of those stories here,” posted by WKRC Local 12 investigative reporter Duane Pohlman, of Cincinnati: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=265228594768820.
“We have given law enforcement opportunities to bust Shaker Hill on at least five occasions with detailed information regarding current fight dates,” Hindi recounted, “and law enforcement has failed every time.
“Given the long operating history of this cockfighting pit it certainly appears to us that this criminal operation is being protected by someone. Your office’s inaction has allowed a longstanding, ongoing criminal operation at Shaker Hill to continue for years.
“I’d like an explanation”
“I’d like an explanation as to what is going on,” Hindi demanded. “If you require further evidence, please indicate what you need.”
The email to Chambers followed by three years Hindi’s June 28, 2021 communique to multiple Kentucky State Police post commanders.
“It’s been 55 weeks,” Hindi recalled then, “since SHARK investigators did our first undercover operation at the Shaker Hill cockfight pit in Butler County. This is significant because 55 weeks ago was the first time police told us they wouldn’t do anything about the cockfight because, they falsely claimed, they were ‘investigating.’ That excuse wasn’t worth anything then, and it is worth less than nothing over a year later.”
Chambers has no relevant public record
Butler County district attorney Blake Ross Chambers as yet appears to have no public record pertaining to cockfights––if only because he has yet to prosecute any.
But former Kentucky governor Matt Bevin, who named Blake Ross Chambers to his position, has considerable relevant history
“Kentucky Senate candidate Matt Bevin has struggled for weeks to explain his appearance at a pro-cockfighting rally. Now he’s caught on tape,” opened MSNBC reporter Benjy Sarlin on April 25, 2014, three years before Blevin gave Blake Ross Chambers his job.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Matt Bevin’s campaign is chicken-fried”
“Matt Bevin’s Kentucky campaign is officially chicken-fried,” Sarlin continued. “Bevin, who is challenging minority leader Mitch McConnell for the Republican Senate nomination, has spent weeks struggling to explain his appearance at a pro-cockfighting event on March 29, 2013. “After a series of vague denials, video emerged of Bevin personally defending legalized cockfighting – a sport in which chickens fight to the death – at the rally.
“Bevin maintained that the rally was not about cockfighting,” Sarlin summarized, but “A TV report on cockfighting by local station WAVE 3 News included video of the rally,” which revealed that Bevin was immediately preceded on the podium by American Gamefowl Defense director Dave Devereaux, “who reportedly told the crowd in his remarks that the event was held for ‘the sole purpose of legalizing gamecock fighting at the state level.’”
Bevin calls himself “A strong supporter of state’s rights”
“After Bevin spoke next,” Sarlin said, “Deveraux asked him whether he would ‘vote to support the effort to legalize gamecock fighting in the state of Kentucky.’”
Replied Bevin, “I support the people of Kentucky exercising their right, because it is our right to decide what it is that we want to do, and not the federal government’s. Criminalizing behavior, if it’s part of the heritage of this state, is in my opinion a bad idea. A bad idea. I will not support it.”
Added Bevin in a later statement, “I am not and have never been, a supporter of cockfighting or any other forms of animal cruelty. I am, however, a strong supporter of states’ rights,” a longtime code phrase indicating support for slavery and racial segregation.
“Regardless of any personal views on this issue, animal rights are not an enumerated power granted to the federal government under the Constitution. Such decisions should be left to each state to decide,” Bevin said.
But Kentucky has decided––against cockfighters & Bevin
But Kentucky voters and legislators have decided, to the extent they have been able, and the decisions did not favor cockfighters.
Cockfighting has been a Class A misdemeanor in Kentucky since 1974.
A 2010 Mason Dixon poll found that 79% of Kentucky voters, regardless of race, gender, and political affiliation favor making cockfighting a felony.
Only 12% agreed with Bevin that cockfighting should be preserved as part of Kentucky heritage of. Kentucky voters said they would be more likely to support a candidate who backs stronger penalties by a nine-to-one margin, but they have not had much chance to do so.
Defeated for U.S. Senate, won & lost in two races for governor
Bevin, despite losing to McConnell in his 2014 U.S. Senate race, was elected governor by a narrow margin in 2015.
Two years after making Blake Ross Chambers the Butler County district attorney, Bevin lost his office to current Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, who has also conspicuously failed to encourage Kentucky legislators, state police, and county sheriffs to crack down on cockfighting.
“Governor Andy Beshear has sidestepped his responsibility in enforcing the laws of the Commonwealth,” Hindi charged in 2023.
“The Kentucky State Police should be partnering with the federal government in these cases, but they have been standing on the sidelines,” Hindi said.
Lack of support from district attorneys––like Blake Ross Chambers––turns out to be part of the problem.
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Long ago, a relative was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The story goes that law enforcement and presumably others knew who the perp was, but he never did a day in jail and was never even arrested for taking the life of a boy who spent almost a year in what must have been incredible pain before he finally passed away.
There’s a life lesson in that, as there is in your article.
Sharing with gratitude and clear, if troubled, vision.