Colorado District Attorneys’ Association has swung behind a national bill, called the FIGHT Act, to provide more tools for law enforcement to crack down on animal-fighting crimes.
Denver—The weekend arrest of an Adams County man on cockfighting-related charges underscores the persistence of cockfighting and highlights the need for robust enforcement and perfection of federal and state laws to halt these crimes of violence.
“We applaud the Adams County Sheriff’s Office for taking action to break up this cockfighting event,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy. “We remind all Coloradans to be the eyes and ears for law enforcement and to alert them to the presence of cockfighting, dogfighting, and other malicious animal-cruelty crimes. Sheriffs and police can only act when they have credible information about ongoing animal cruelty crimes.”
Colorado treats animal fighting as a felony, but cockfighters routinely flout the law and take their chances with their staged fights and the trafficking of fighting animals. The Colorado arrest comes as Congress considers taking up the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Risk Trafficking (FIGHT) Act to address the threat that animal fighting poses to community safety, agriculture, and animal well-being.
This past weekend, deputies with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office seized 39 birds, 32 of them roosters. A 34-year-old suspect, Jesus Orozco, is believed to have overseen the animal fights, and tentative charges against him include committing aggravated cruelty to animals. The sheriff’s office shared photos of the seizure and pinpoint where fighting almost certainly occurred.
“Based on the photos I’ve reviewed, this location is consistent with a cockfighting operation,” said Eric Sakach, a law enforcement specialist with Animal Wellness Action and the nation’s top court-certified expert on animal fighting cases. “The gamecocks I saw were dubbed and trimmed and they were being housed in a manner that is consistent with numerous other cockfighting operations I have observed. The imbalanced ratio of roosters to hens, with the roosters exhibiting injuries consistent with having been fought, tell us all we need to know.”
Despite these prohibitions, there are millions of fighting animals trafficked every year in the United States, with hundreds of thousands smuggled across the U.S. border with Mexico. The long-distance movement of birds, who are often infected with avian diseases, is a threat to production agriculture for broiler birds and laying hens. To address this continuing problem and to give law enforcement more tools to end this barbaric trade, Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy have been working to pass the FIGHT Act.
Colorado law enforcement has swung behind the legislation, including the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council (CDAC).
The FIGHT Act, by amending Section 26 of the Animal Welfare Act, would enhance the enforcement opportunities by banning on-line gambling of animal fighting ventures; halting the shipment of mature roosters (chickens only) shipped through the U.S. mail (it is already illegal to ship dogs through the mail); creating a citizen suit provision, after proper notice to federal authorities, to allow private right of action against illegal animal fighters; and enhancing forfeiture provisions to include real property for animal fighting crimes.
Animal Wellness Action is calling on all U.S. lawmakers, including Colorado’s Congressional delegation, to back the FIGHT Act. Reps Joe Neguse, D-2, Diana DeGette, D-1, Jason Crow, D-6, Brittany Pettersen, D-7, and Yadira Caraveo, D-8, are cosponsors of H.R. 2742, led by Reps. Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Andrea Salinas, D-Ore.. Neither U.S. Senator Michael Bennet nor John Hickenlooper, both Democrats, are cosponsors of the Senate companion, S. 1529, led by Senators Cory Booker, D-N.J., and John Kennedy, R-La.
In addition to the CDAC, the FIGHT Act has 635+ groups and agencies behind it, including the National Sheriffs’ Association, the National District Attorneys Association, Small and Rural Law Enforcement Executive Association, American Gaming Association, United Egg Producers, Rose Acre Farms, Vital Farms, and the Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania sheriffs’ associations.