400 Cockfighting birds seized at scene of homicide
Dallas, TX (US)Incident Date: Monday, Aug 23, 2004
County: Dallas
Disposition: Not Charged
Abuser names unreleased
On Monday, police were called to the scene of a double homicide – and the evidence seized at the scene included nearly 400 chickens, most of them bellicose males apparently being bred for cockfighting. About 30 hens and 100 or so juvenile birds were sent to the Oak Cliff shelter.
The birds, illegal to keep in the city limits, were confiscated after police found the bodies of Jose Guadalupe Obregon, 36, and his 17-year-old nephew, Roman Obregon, in a shed on a five-acre lot in southern Dallas.
There was ample evidence that the birds were being bred for cockfighting: earthen pits where the birds are set on each other and razor-sharp spurs that are attached to the animals' legs.
Police don't know whether the bird-breeding operation tied into the killings, but the fact is that the animals themselves are valuable. People will pay upward of $500, and sometimes many thousands of dollars, for a particularly fierce rooster.
Technically, just keeping poultry inside the city limits is a code violation, for which a judge could fine an owner $200 to $2,000 a bird. If prosecutors can show they were being kept for cockfighting, which is outlawed in Texas, charges of animal cruelty could be added.
References« TX State Animal Cruelty Map
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