EN GARDE! HAVE AT YOU, THEN!
Posted on 04/29/2003 6:59:13 AM PDT by presidio9
Devotees of a South Bronx cockfighting den shut by cops this weekend predict the operation will be back in business in days. "It's big money," said a patron of the second-floor cockfighting den yesterday. "They'll be back next week, I guarantee it. If not in the same place, somewhere else in the neighborhood."
Four of the men arrested this weekend were busted in a similar raid on a cockfighting arena in January.
Cockfight clubs, like the one on Longwood Ave. that was raided Sunday, often relocate and reopen for business quickly after a bust, said authorities and fans of the lethal blood sport.
Police and agents from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals stormed the blood-soaked club, once a church, early Sunday after lookouts using two-way radios missed the oncoming raid.
Eleven men were arrested, including eight on felony charges of cruelty to animals. They face two to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine if convicted.
Three of those - Jose Nunez, 47, LaTorre Valentin, 34, and Tomas Hierro, 44 - were arrested after a Jan. 18 raid on Park Ave. in the Bronx. Another man charged this weekend, Angel Luis Benitez, 69, had been issued a criminal court summons for allegedly participating in the Jan. 18 cockfight.
Benitez, the alleged ringleader of Sunday's bird fight, could not be reached for comment.
ASPCA Special Agent Joseph Pentangelo said authorities hope that stiff fines and the threat of prison will dissuade people from abusing animals in illegal cockfighting dens.
"If cockfighting were my hobby, I would find a new hobby," he said.
But the message wasn't convincing for some.
"I'll get me a new place and some more roosters, because this is a business," the patron recalled an alleged organizer saying after he was released by cops.
On Sunday, cops seized $18,000 and 19 shaved roosters with fighting spurs. The building also allowed illegal alcohol sales and gambling.
An additional 125 birds were retrieved from a basement on 156th St., authorities said.
Neighbors, accustomed to cockfighting dens that open, close and reopen in different spots to avoid detection, weren't surprised by the use of a former church.
Other dens have sprung up within one and two blocks - at a fish market and a former movie theater.
EN GARDE! HAVE AT YOU, THEN!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.