Cockfighting

Wonder if my old neighbor is one of those arrested?

More than 70 people have been arrested in a cockfighting ring that secretly gathered in central North Carolina to watch a $40,000 tournament so gruesome that one of the roosters splattered blood on the investigators' search warrant, authorities said.

Deputies didn't expect to find so many people crammed into three chicken houses that had been cleaned out to provide hidden parking spaces and a cockfighting pit, Randolph County Sheriff Maynard Reid Jr. said in an interview Monday. Authorities arrested 73 people, ranging in age from 16 to 79, and charged them all with felonies for cockfighting and cruelty to animals.

. . .

He described a grisly scene: About 20 birds were already dead, eliminated early from a deadly tournament. A fight was ongoing when deputies arrived, and one of the combatant roosters jumped up onto the betting table and spattered blood onto a search warrant that investigators were serving, Reid said.

The tournament's grand champion, Reid said, was slated to win $40,000. He named the ringleader as 33-year-old Barry Ritter. Reid said Ritter was charging $25 to watch the event at a facility he owned with his father, who was not among those arrested.

"I think it was used at one time to raise chickens," Reid said. "Now it is being used for cockfighting. They had a rural area. They thought nobody would catch them there. But I think we've sent a message that we will not tolerate this in our county."

Looks like quite a few Durham addresses among those busted. Would be interesting to see how many complaints are on file with Durham's Animal Control Department regarding those addresses.