Friday, May 16, 2008
Why does the land o' many Birkenstocks allow fowl to be bred for cockfights?
Apr 18, 2001 | The small, unassuming barn sits just below the horizon from Interstate 5, about 10 miles north of Eugene in Junction City, Ore. Since the beginning of the year, the Lane County vice squad has been snooping around the building. The barn's owner, Hector Santiago, allegedly purchased the barn for tens of thousands of dollars, cash on the barrel. It was suspicious; Santiago had connections with meth producers and drug runners. His lover's brother was reputed to be one of the top meth lords in the Willamette Valley.
At about 7 in the morning in late January, as darkness faded into a winter gray, a dozen officers stormed the barn. They expected to find a web of tubing, beakers and other meth-producing paraphernalia, but what they discovered was far more alarming. Except for a large, square mound of dirt ringed by ropes, the barn was nearly empty. But the cavernous interior of the barn was alive with squawking. Along the walls were nearly 30 metal cages, each stuffed with robust game hens.
"We're a bunch of drug cops," detective Keith Seanor said about his surprising find. "I didn't know exactly what was going on, but it looked suspicious."
About once a year, police in Oregon stumble on the sprawling cockfighting circuits that reach from New Mexico to Washington. Like the drug trade, these networks are well organized and secretive. The popularity of cockfighting in Oregon is unknown, but law enforcement agents estimate the fight circuit will draw around 6,000 spectators during the upcoming spring and summer seasons -- about the same attendance as the recent state high school basketball championships.
Fights are held in arenas complete with concession stands, armed guards and bleachers seating upward of 300. Many take place in barns like the one in Junction City. Just a few years ago a major bust on Deer Island, a few miles north of Portland, uncovered a fight with almost 400 spectators. Currently, law enforcement agents say, they are casing a major breeder who sponsors fights on his several acres of land near Gresham.
As the activity is largely associated with Central America, the popular conception is that cockfighters in the U.S. also are Latino. Most of the breeders, however, are rural, white farmers and most of the cockfighters who have been arrested, at least in the Pacific Northwest, are white, small-town dwellers. There is nothing to suggest that a certain ethnicity or even age group is more apt to breed or fight birds.
Without any vehicles to properly confiscate and transport the roosters found in Santiago's barn -- and with no idea really about what to do with the birds -- the officers left. They had plenty of evidence to support a search warrant for the next morning, though: razors and vials of testosterone as well as videotapes showing roosters being slashed to death. (According to law enforcement agents, the roosters are injected with testosterone to jack them up for their fights.) But when they returned 24 hours later, the birds had mysteriously vanished back into Oregon's secretive and closely guarded world of game fighting.
"It would be a needle in a haystack to find those birds now," Seanor said recently.
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ROOSTERS WITH KNIVES
Two birds stand in the middle of a patch of dirt, separated only by a thin piece of plywood. These roosters are elegant animals -- golden brown plumage trimmed with rich black feathers. They both stare at the board, calm, almost indifferent to the encouraging shouts around them. Attached to their twiglike legs are razor-sharp blades hooked like paring knives.
There is a moment of stillness when the board is pulled away and the birds face each other. Then, puffing its chest, one stretches its legs while spreading its wings. In a snap, it looks like the bird has doubled to an intimidating size. The other bird squats low and pulls its body in tight. Then it lunges, beak first, for the exposed chest of its opponent. The fight continues for several minutes until one of the birds is too weak to stand. Pecked, poked and slashed, the loser displays royal feathers matted with blood; it looks as lifeless as a punctured beer can.
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