Rooster Fighters

I know, I know. It has been over a month since the last post.
I get these great ideas for topics and even kind of plan out what I want to say. Unfortunately these ideas often occur in the middle of the night on the occasions when I can't sleep or when I can't start typing on the thought.
I'll start off with comments on a TV show I was watching and go ramble on from there!

It was an episode of Animal Cops Phoenix on Animal Planet. This was one of a couple of episodes I'd recorded a month or so ago and just finally watching. Of all the different geographical areas of the shows in the series of Animal Cops, the shows from the Phoenix Arizona area remind me most of the High Desert areas of San Bernardino County that I enjoyed working. Also with Phoenix being much more metropolitan, they also show areas that remind me of many areas 'down in the valley', places like Muscoy, Bloomington and South Fontana that were also areas I'd worked over my decades with Animal Control.

In this particular episode, their "guys" had been called out to go with their local law enforcement to raid a back yard rooster or cock fighting facility in their area. I recalled the times when my department first began responding to these places. I think I may have already written about an example of this in older posts but the first ones I was involved in that I really remember were in the Ontario California area. For quite a few years in the 1980's our department had the contract with the City of Ontario for animal control, I know because I worked it for over 5 years myself.
The south end areas of the town was predominantly, but not all, Hispanic "Barrio" and that was were the first cock fighting rings were handled. In those days all the investigation was done by the city police and all paraphernalia, evidence and whatever else was done by them. Our department was the clean up crew and we'd get called out to impound all the birds; dead or alive, as well as whatever the detectives wanted taken away.
I remember on this call that the Ontario P.D. stayed with us, 4 ACO's with their "dog trucks" and the "David unit" which was a truck with a rear lift gate and center open area for large dead animals, along with the stock trailer on one of the trucks. It was a slow process that had begun in the afternoon and at the 11 PM shift change the PD just disappeared! We'd noticed when after the Police cars left, area residents started to come and check out what we were doing. We'd all done several trips to Devore before this point to take loads, and we all decided to wrap it up as quickly as we could now!

I thought about how far things had come for our department and this one too.
Back in the 1980's and 1990's, ALL the birds would be picked up alive and taken to the shelter. By the 2000's, it was down to maybe just 5 birds for evidentary purposes. In the show I watched all fighting birds were photographed, and most all were euthanized on the spot. Although for us euthanasia was the ultimate outcome weeks or months later for most of what we'd impound, until they started to get stolen back. Read on!
It was nothing but a pain to impound transport and care for upwards off 150 to 200 roosters that couldn't even see each other or they'd try to fight. They always took hours and hours to handle no matter how many ACO's were there. The department had only one stock trailer at the time so it would be fill that up with birds in carriers and cages, then fit as many of the carriers in the truck cages as well. Massive overtime was always assured if you were unlucky enough to get one of these calls in your area or had to go assist the person who got a call! And they almost ALWAYS seemed to have these raids on Friday and Saturday evenings!

The first time we went to a large old chicken ranch in Bloomington for a busted fighting ring, was the first time we got the OK to not only take all the birds but confiscate as many of the row cages they'd be kept in as we could carry. This was quite the boon for us as well as the shelter as to this point the birds were kept in cardboard carriers, boxes, animal crates, whatever was on hand to keep them in. After that call it became routine to take whatever we could find to transport the birds at the time of impound.

At the time, mid 1980's, the crime of Cock Fighting was in the news and considered almost a felony in scope so one thought at the time of impounding everything was due to the fact that owning or fighting birds was illegal anyway, and zoning regulations prevented almost all areas of San Bernardino County from even owning roosters, so take them all. And since many of the bird owners had scattered on arrival of the police, if they came to try and claim their birds they could be cited then. That last part never happened though!
Actually what started to happen was that the people began to find out where their birds had been taken and impounded. They'd drive up to the Devore Shelter which was and still is, in an isolated area that was easy pickings. So at its worse, fighting birds would be picked up at a raid, then by the following weekend people would have easily gained access to the yards of the shelter and would take back their birds. There was no perimeter alarm and only a 8 foot chain link fence with barbed wire at the top to keep out the bad guys. Only the main building and even then it was only offices had an alarm, if it had been remembered to be turned on, not the entire building! Though not many knew that fact. At least one time I remember that every bird picked up had been stolen back in just a few days. Another time they just started to disappear a few at a time until all gone in just a few weeks.

For a few years this became more of the norm at the shelter. Not just for fighting birds either, dogs, goats even two horses were stolen back from the shelter and never seen again since the owner wasn't quite so dumb to take them home again. They'd take whatever to a friends place for a few months. The community of Muscoy was just down the road from the shelter, about 5 minutes away. We'd started to believe that there were residents from Muscoy would basically go to the shelter to shop and see what they might want to take that week!
What really started to wind down the massive bird impounds though was the bill to the city agency or the county Sheriff's Department for those picked up in unincorporated areas. They, the agencies/departments, wanted the birds all picked up but with trials months down the road, if ever!, the care and feeding of the "evidence" got to become very expensive.
After all the balking on the fees and almost constant theft of any impounded birds, it became Put To Sleep (PTS) all birds that would have been impounded and take away all the bodies, cages, carriers, etc.
And finally, when I was still there, it went to cite release with the bird owners and allow them to take most of their birds themselves just confiscate any and all paraphernalia, drugs, cash on hand etc. and just keep a few birds, if any, as evidence. At the discretion of the law enforcement on the scene. By then, 2006, in most agencies, as crimes went, rooster fighting wasn't the "crime" it had been almost 20 years before.

One of the last organized fight faculties I went to was in the county area of Adelanto in the High Desert west of Victorville. Of course this was my last call on a Saturday night, my Friday, and I was there with another ACO and the Sheriff's department until almost midnight. Like many places, an unassuming kinda run down double wide mobile home on a dirt road a little ways North off the main highway of "Palmdale Road" also called Highway 18, a main East West route from the Palmdale/Lancaster area to Interstate 15 that took many L.A. residents to Las Vegas and beyond.
When I first arrived only one Sheriff's car had arrived before me so we walked around assessing the area to see what we were there for while his partner kept all the people 'company' so they wouldn't try to leave before their back up arrived.
You wouldn't know from the outside but inside what looked to be a garage was a fair sized ring complete with bleachers, a separate snack bar with a grill, cold drinks and a menu sign that told of lunch or dinner. All stocked up for quite an evening!
The tip off to the Sheriff's Department was from a disgruntled person who'd lost quite a bit of money at previous matches. Seems like this was a regularly scheduled event that had many regulars drive up from the L.A. area. It was the first one I'd ever been to that was primarily Asian clientele instead of Hispanic. It was sure funny to hear how so many people were "lost" and found their way to this particular place in all of the desert from Los Angeles! And none of them knew of any illegal activities there! Why would people fight those poor birds! "I was just meeting a friend here, I don't know why he wanted to meet me here!", and on and on.

Just outside in a little blocked off area was a large hole in the ground where the 'losers' had been tossed. Freshest losers on top and feathers under dirt showing the layers that must have been there as one match went down. We found the 'clinic' room where some first aid was given to some that must have been to valuable to just toss if they lost. In that room we came across a great collection of the "Gaffs" or the actual knives that would be attached to many of the roosters.
I kept a set of Gaffs (no I wasn't supposed too but I knew we were moving soon and I wasn't going to buy any!) from this raid as my own trophies of putting this guy, however temporarily, out of business.
You could usually tell a rooster raised for fighting because of it's trimmed comb and removed or cut close natural spurs. They'd be cut down and squared off on each leg to give the best attachment point for the gaffs so in addition to being tied and taped on, they couldn't fall off. Some birds, I was told the ones the owner didn't have enough money to by the expensive gaff sets for, would have sharpened and filed the natural spurs, so that the spurs on the bird would be sharp like a pick to stab the opponent.

The memories!!!!

Till next time, Tad