January 15, 2008
Livermore Cockfighting Ring Busted
It nice to see that the farming and ranching traditions of Livermore's past live on to this day. You see, seven men were nabbed this past Sunday in connection with a cockfighting ring on the 4000 block of North Livermore Avenue. Ick.
Busted while a fowl fight was in progress, officers arrested three gentlemen from Alameda, two blokes from Livermore, one from San Jose, and another from Las Vegas. Police officers also uncovered "300 gamecocks being used or prepared for use in cockfights" as well as 150 gamecocks and hens in an unincorporated part of Livermore. All of the birds, it seems, are worth up to $500,000. Wow.
Authorities are in the process of finding "sustainable homes" for the poor little birds.
Once considered acceptable in the US--even our founding papas George Washington and Thomas Jefferson used participated in the sport--cockfighting is now banned in all states except for Louisiana. Britney Spears' home state will officially outlaw cockfighting in August of this year.
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Wait a minute, 450 chickens are worth $500,000? That's over $1,000 per chicken! These obviously aren't the ones used for my 99 cent Jack in the Box chicken sandwiches.
What a waste of police resources. I guess real crime isn't a huge problem in the 'burb of Livermore?
i know the police like to inflate dollar cost values for drug busts, but doing it for a chicken bust seems a little bit cynical even for them.
Cockfighting is a very high dollar "sport." Their figures don't surprise me at all. Hm, I thought I'd left all this behind when I moved to California (the legality of cockfighting, which had just been banned, was being litigated when I left).
Get outside of the SF Bay Area and there are evidently just as many white trash hicks as there were back home. Sad.
Ben Vereen is not particularly thrilled about this.
I'm from Modesto where cockfighting is rampant on the outskirts of town, and have brought out to some of the ranches where these birds are sold when I was younger. With all of that said I can vouch that these birds can fetch anywhere from 4 or 5 hundred bucks all the way up to several thousand easily.