No link disclosed, but suggestive geography
LUZERNE COUNTY, Pennsylvania––Pennsylvania State Police on March 6, 2025 disclosed having impounded 28 pit bulls from a home on Ridge Avenue in West Hazleton, Pennsylvania, eight days after executing a search warrant on February 27, 2025 that brought the second major U.S. alleged dogfighting bust of the year.
Geography suggested a possible connection with the February 4, 2025 arrest about 70 miles away of an alleged pit bull hauler for dogfighters operating out of Houston, Texas.
There appeared to be no link, however, between those two cases and the Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2025 impoundment of 15 pit bulls and two cats from a “possible dog breeding and fighting” operation in Wichita, Kansas, described to Michael Stavola of the Wichita Eagle by Wichita police captain Aaron Moses. A 21-year-old woman was arrested at the scene on drug-related charges.
At the scene of the West Hazleton mass pit bull impoundment, a semi-residential, semi-industrial neighborhood bordering on woods, Cranberry Creek, and State Route 924, “Troopers said they found numerous items related to animal fighting,” reported Vivian Muniz and Gianna Galli for WBRE/WYOU Eyewitness News in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
19 pit bulls in crates, eight in shed
“Nineteen dogs were found in crates inside while eight were discovered inside a backyard shed,” Muniz and Galli detailed. “The dogs showed scars on their head, chest, and legs, a sign of dog fighting, according to investigators.
“Troopers said one dog was running loose on the property before being captured.”
The pit bulls were reportedly taken into custody by Tracey Morgan-Chopick of the Luzerne County Animal Response Team.
The Griffin Pond Animal Shelter “temporarily cared for the dogs until they were placed in the care of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals [ASPCA]” recounted Muniz and Galli.
Springpoles, treadmills, & scars
“Upon arrival on scene,” according to an ASPCA statement, “law enforcement discovered dogfighting paraphernalia, including weighted collars and heavy chains, springpoles, treadmills, and medical supplies, which included IV materials, dog aspirin, and parasite growth retardant solution.
“Some dogs were also observed with scarring and injuries consistent with dogfighting,” the ASPCA statement confirmed.
“The ASPCA tells 28/22 News the dogs are receiving medical and behavioral evaluations until placement options are determined,” Muniz and Galli said.
“The person inside the home at the time of the search warrant was taken to the Luzerne County Correctional Facility on unrelated charges.
“Police are still investigating. There is no word yet if anyone has been charged in connection with the dogfighting ring,” Muniz and Galli added.
(Beth Clifton collage)
ASPCA assistance in perspective
“In just the past year alone,” Muniz and Galli concluded, “nationwide the ASPCA has assisted law enforcement with 17 cases of suspected dogfighting.”
“Assisted” does not appear to include doing the primary investigation leading to dogfighting busts.
The ASPCA, as of the most recent available IRS Form 990 filing, for fiscal year 2022, had income of $376 million, paying chief executive Matt Bershadker total compensation for the year of more than $1.1 million.
By contrast, Showing Animals Respect & Kindness does the primary investigation leading to about as many cockfighting busts per year as the number of dogfighting busts the ASPCA claims to have assisted with after the fact, on a total annual budget of less than a third of Bershadker’s salary.
Showing Animals Respect & Kindness founder and chief executive Steve Hindi has never taken a salary.
“Driving under the influence”
The chain of events leading to the bust in West Hazleton, an economically depressed former coal town, may have begun at 8:47 a.m. on February 4, 2025, when Pennsylvania state trooper Thomas Rehberg stopped a 2010 Mazda CX7 near Interstate 84 west mile marker 25.8, in Palymra Township, Pike County, about 70 miles from West Hazleton.
“The driver, Edwin Bradley,” 41, of Houston, Texas “was discovered to be driving under the influence of drugs, and in possession of drugs and related drug paraphernalia,” according to the arrest report.
“Through a consent to search of the vehicle, five pit bull dogs in small cages were observed in unsanitary conditions,” the arrest report continued. “Some of the dogs had open sores and were bleeding from their bodies.”
“Previously charged three times with dogfighting in Texas”
Taken into custody and questioned at the Pennsylvania State Police station in Blooming Grove, Bradley was discovered to have been “previously charged three separate times with felony dogfighting in Texas.
“Numerous indicators of dog trafficking for fighting were discovered,” the arrest report summarized. “During the investigation it was discovered that that Bradley is a part of a large-scale dogfighting organization in Houston, Texas, and is a transport man for individuals who want pit bull dogs for fighting delivered.”
Local shelters would not take the pit bulls
After “All shelters around and in Pike County were contacted,” but refused to take in the five impounded pit bulls, they were “transported by Pittsburg Aviation Animal Rescue to Philadelphia, and housed by the Pennsylvania Society to Prevent Cruelty to Animals,” the arrest report finished.
“It was unclear precisely where Bradley was allegedly taking the dogs,” reported Joe Kohut for WNEP News in Scranton, adding, “The dogs were locked in small, unsanitary cages. Some had open sores that were actively bleeding.
“Glassy & bloodshot eyes”
“Bradley was jailed in Pike County in lieu of $25,000 bail.”
But Vivian Muniz of WBRE/WYOU, who later covered the West Hazleton bust, reported that “Bradley told troopers that he was driving from Connecticut to Houston with dogs he had just picked up.
“Troopers said he had glassy and bloodshot eyes.
“The smell of marijuana was coming from the vehicle and a THC vape was seen, leading troopers to believe he was driving under the influence,” Muniz added, mentioning also that the pit bulls “looked malnourished, and were bleeding from the mouth.”
Cockfighting bust in proximity
Bradley may have only been passing through, but animal fighting is scarcely unknown in Luzerne County.
Acting on a tip about cockfighting, the Luzerne County SPCA and detectives for the county district attorney’s office on April 10, 2024 “executed a search warrant on the residence of Reynaldo DeJesus Castillo, 62, and Annies Martires Castillo, 69, on Sugarloaf Heights Road,” Emily Cherkauskas and Taylor Whartnaby reported for WOLF-TV in Wilkes-Barre.
“The search yielded 77 live hens, 59 live roosters, two dead roosters, 30 eggs, multiple gloves used to cover rooster spurs to practice fighting, and a package of ‘Super Vermi-Gallo,’ a substance known to be used to promote fighting,” Luzerne County district attorney Sam Sanguedolce said.
“Hundreds of charges”
The Castillos were in August 2004 hit with “hundreds of charges including animal neglect, fighting, and conspiracy,” Cherkauskas updated.
The Castillos’ address on Sugarloaf Heights Road was 10 miles north of Ridge Avenue in West Hazleton, where the 28 pit bulls were found on February 27, 2025.
An address search indicates that that the Castillos formerly lived in West Hazleton, and may now live in Connecticut.
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Whether or not the adherents “make America great again” is moot. But we can certainly do better than this, and it will benefit all if and when we value our people and our inhabitants.
Frankly I wish they would leave the dog fighters alone.
Now those fighting dogs will take up space in shelters until they die or worse get sold, I mean adopted in to the community.
At least when the dog fighters have them it is only other pits or in rare cases the fighters and their family members getting mauled.
Pit advocacy didn’t end dog fighting, just moved it from the pits to the back yards, dog parks, playgrounds and stores all over the country.
At least the dogfighters understand what pits are.
They know they are not “cuddle bugs that you have to force to fight”.
They know pits are killers and that’s why they keep them chained to a truck axle set in concrete in the back yard.
Pits owned by dogfighters rarely “somehow get out”.
The dogs cost money plus they don’t want the prying eyes of animal control looking into their business.
Hell, this may not have anything to do with dog fighting.
Many pet pits have scars from when they have tried to kill each other.
Many breeders keep medical gear around for when the pits try to eat each other.
In a sane world fighting dogs would be destroyed.
Being charged with any dogfighting offense should be enough to earn your dogs a round of pink juice.
Instead the pits will get vet work on the tax payer’s dime and shelters will do their best to get them rehomed.
You apparently have no heart every dog should have a second chance they don’t deserve to be treated in the manner they were treated. People like you should be treated like those poor innocent dogs. God did not put these precious animals on this earth for people to fight them and abuse them. Those people who harm animals should be put in a small cage and be starved to death like they did to those animals.
Susan, above, plainly fails to recognize Dr. Duke’s heavy irony.
More significantly, but unfortunately common among animal advocates, Susan fails to distinguish between facts, in this case the facts about pit bull behavior, and moral judgement. The overlooked facts include that pit bulls have been bred for instantaneous reactivity, without hesitation or relent, for at least 500 years, equivalent to 500 human generations, or 9,000 years of human evolution. There is no moral judgement either implied or involved in recognizing that this is why pit bulls are more than 10 times more likely to kill and maim than other dogs.
Susan then concludes with a recommendation which is both self-evidently inhumane and at odds with the facts of the cases described in “First big dogfighting bust of 2025 follows bust of alleged dog hauler“: while some of the impounded pit bulls were emaciated, none were starved to death.
Ridiculous comment. And I quote, “Almost half of the human fatalities caused by dogs and investigated by the Humane Society of the United States in the past several years were related to pitbulls used for fighting.” – The Man Who Talked to Dogs by Melinda Roth
Spend more time combing through newspapers from the ’80s instead of sitting online and you might actually learn FACTS. There’s a reason hsus wanted dogfighters’ dogs to be euthanized.
The Humane Society of the U.S. has not investigated dog attack fatalities since the 1980s. The quote Melinda Roth cited originated with veterinarian Michael Fox circa 1980. It might have been true then, but among the 724 U.S. & Canadian fatal pit bull attacks logged by ANIMALS 24-7 since 1982, only two involved either pit bulls or pit bull owners with any history of involvement in organized dogfighting.
You Have Got To Be Kidding Me With Your Comment! Okay Then Going By Your Logic, You Must Forage For Your Own Food, Learn How To Build Your Own Shelter, Fire, Find Clean Drinking Water Etc. I Mean After All Man Were Once Neanderthals.. You Go Back To That Since You Don’t Believe Others Including Wolves, Dog’s Are Able to Evolve And Change Or Deserve A Second Chance, Capsble Of Love Loyalty Etc. But Come Near My German Shepherds That Sleep In The Bed, Sit On The Furinature Etc. And We Will Have A Problem!
The above comment conflates evolutionary change, selective breeding, and individual behavioral adaptation.
Evolutionary change pertains to traits innate to a species. Human generations are measured in 18-year increments. Five hundred human generations is therefore 9,000 years. Nine thousand years ago recognizable racial differences among homo sapiens had yet to emerge.
Selective breeding pertains to directed evolutionary change, done to accelerate the emergence of distinctively different traits in a species, such as Max von Stephanitz did to produce the German shepherd dog line, first recognized as such in 1899. German shepherds have now been around for 126 generations, the equivalent in human evolutionary terms of the time since Ptolemy III ruled Egypt, the Zhao dynasty general Lian Po died at age 84, and the Romans occupied Gaul, the region now known as France. Humans have not discernibly changed much since then, but neither have we been line-bred to accentuate any specific traits.
Pit bulls, however, have been line-bred to accentuate fighting traits for at least 500 generations, an instance of induced evolutionary change going back farther than any of the clearly delineated differences in traits among modern livestock and poultry.
Individual behavioral adaptation reflects the extent to which an individual of a given breed or species is able to depart from inbred characteristics to do something different. Humans, if we can be said to have selectively bred ourselves for anything, have evolved for much broader individual behavioral adaptation than any other species. The term “doggedness,” on the other hand, refers to the relatively much more limited range of canine behavior.
Within that narrow range, pit bull behavior is narrower still, having been accentuated by selective breeding for specific traits for far longer. See Why Human races are not like dog breeds: Refuting a Racist Analogy and Dog brain study refutes every major claim of pit bull advocacy.