Raid Puts Harsh Light on Rural Va.

Number of Arenas Grows as State Seeks to Heighten Penalties

A Humane Society staffer cradles a chicken discovered during the raid. Dozens of birds were found dead or dying. (Humane Society)

When the local sheriff raided a warehouse in Southside Virginia last weekend, he found a dirt pit surrounded by bleachers, dozens of dead or dying chickens strewn about, a concession shack selling beer and soft tacos, and at least 120 men and women carrying more than $40,000.

It was an illegal cockfighting arena, one of a growing number that officials say have sprouted up across rural Virginia in the past year. The penalty for cockfighting is lighter in Virginia than in almost any other state. With North Carolina the most recent state to make cockfighting a felony, fans of the bloody sport, many of them Latino immigrants from the Carolinas and the Washington area, are making rural Virginia a cockfighting mecca, animal-rights advocates say.

"We have become a magnet for this," said John Goodwin of the Humane Society of the United States, whose investigative work led to the raid last weekend in Mecklenburg County. "These are large cockfighting rings with bleacher seating, concession stands, the works. They are all along the North Carolina border."

The Humane Society has been working for years to steepen the penalty for cockfighting in Virginia. Last week's bust might help the cause: A bill that would make it a felony to participate in cockfighting is making its way through the General Assembly, and even rural lawmakers who admit to having attended a cockfight or two say they will give it a closer look.

The issue is a little tricky because most of those arrested last weekend are Latinos. Lawmakers have been resistant to raising the penalties for a pastime that has been prevalent in rural Virginia for generations. It could be perceived as discriminatory, advocates for immigrant rights say, for the legislature to change its tune at a time when cockfighting among immigrants is attracting attention.

Cockfighting is a brutal pastime in which gamecocks fight in a dirt ring with razor-sharp steel spurs attached to their legs. The three-inch-long spurs usually cause the death of at least one of the animals.

"We had one gamecock with his windpipe exposed, another with a bone sticking out of his wing and another with a chest wound so bad that you could see his organs moving inside his chest cavity," said Goodwin, who went with officers from the Mecklenburg County sheriff's department in last weekend's raid.

Cockfighting has been banned in 48 states, including Virginia, not only for its brutality but also because of the prevalence of gambling, often with tens of thousands of dollars at stake. But it continues in Virginia in part because gambling on or charging admission to a cockfight is only a Class 3 misdemeanor -- punishable by no more than a $500 fine.

As a result, although more than 100 participants were arrested last Sunday in Boydton, the only ones facing jail time are those charged with immigration violations.

In December 2005, when North Carolina elevated the penalty for cockfighting to a felony, Virginia became second only to Alabama in the leniency of its penalties. (Louisiana and New Mexico have not banned cockfighting.)

The Humane Society is aware of at least 10 cockfighting rings operating along the North Carolina state line, Goodwin said. Others operate west of Washington in the Shenandoah Valley. Some are full-fledged arenas enclosed in buildings, he said, and others are little more than "brush pits," set up in rural clearings for smaller crowds.

Goodwin played down the Latino connection, noting that the Mecklenburg location "was a Latino pit, but there are Caucasian pits as well."

Del. Clarke N. Hogan, a Republican from Halifax County who grinned and answered "no comment" when asked if he'd ever attended a cockfight, said he is open to the need to elevate the penalties. But he said he is also sensitive to the potential perception that a change in the law now might look like the state is targeting Latinos.

Hogan also said cockfighting is not the most urgent state priority.

"If you had to rank it among criminal problems, like drugs, domestic violence, those kinds of issues, this isn't even close," he said.