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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2000--

Dogfight on the western front:
Ill-bred Americans said to be "over-large, over-aggressive, and over here."

BRUSSELS--Germany, France, Italy, and Britain are battling again
in Belgium, and invading bloody Americans are again ensnarled in the thick
of it.
That's American pit bull terriers this time. Like the doughboys of
World War I and the G.I.s of World War II, they are said to be over-large,
overdosed on testosterone, and over here, looking for a fight.
This time they are seen as allies of neo-Nazis and Huns--Attila's
Huns, who ravaged Europe from 434 to 453, when the notoriously reactive
Attila's brain burst as he celebrated his honeymoon.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council of the European Union on
September 29 heard a German proposal to ban throughout Europe the breeding
or import of any kind of "fighting dog," defined as any member of 14
breeds with American pit bull traits. As well as the American pit bull and
Japanese tosa, who have been banned in Britain and The Netherlands since
1991, the German proposal would ban Rhodesian ridgebacks, Neopolitan
bulldogs, Staffordshire terriers, English bull terriers, and bull
mastiffs.
The latter three breeds are longtime British favorites, popular
throughout much of the former British empire. In theory they are easily
distinguished from American pit bulls and other authentic fighting
breeds--but dogfighters long since learned to evade breed-specific pit bull
bans by breeding pit bulls with the Staffordshire black-and-white
coloration, instead of the traditional pit bull brindle.
Bull mastiffs, meanwhile, are also turning up with greater than
historical frequency in reports of life-threatening dog attacks. But
English bull terriers seem to be caught in the crossfire mainly due to
their name.
Legislation was rushed into effect in most of the 16 German states
during July and August 2000, soon after an American pit bull terrier named
Zeus and a black Staffordshire terrier named Gypsy leaped a fence to attack
10 children who were waiting in a Hamburg school yard to be taken swimming.
A six-year-old boy of Turkish immigrant parentage tried to run. Zeus tore
his throat out. Gypsy severely mauled another child. Police shot both
dogs on the spot.
The tragedy had racial overtones, not just because the dead boy
came from Germany's darkest and most often abused ethnic minority, but
also because barely two months earlier an assembly of pit bull fanciers
planned to pin yellow stars on their dogs, like those the Nazis compelled
Jews to wear during the Holocaust, and parade the pit bulls through Berlin
to protest a proposed breed-restrictive city ordinance.
Only after Central Council of Jews president Paul Spiegel
threatened to take legal action against the fanciers for alleged defamation
did they back off slightly, apologizing for offending Holocaust survivors.
The Berlin ordinance, now in effect, became the model for the
ensuing German state legislation and the proposed EU legislation. Owners
of the 14 designated "fighting dog" breeds are not required to get rid of
them, but must keep them leashed and muzzled at all times when they are in
a public place; must take an examination of their knowledge of dog-rearing
and dog-training; and may not have any criminal history.
A rash of "fighting dog" abandonments followed, as owners rushed
to avoid liability. A flurry of Internet postings and some media accounts
also blamed public panic for instances of pit bulls and similar dogs being
burned alive, shot, hanged, and so forth. Not clear from the evidence,
however, was that many of these cases actually involved anything more than
dogfighters' routine vicious dispatch of dogs who won't fight, or lose--as
in the U.S., where Boston-area investigators learned in 1999 that some
dogfighters skin losing dogs right in the ring, possibly still alive, and
keep the pelts as trophies.
France since January 2000 has required that all pit bulls and dogs
of several other high-risk breed be neutered, with the intention of
eliminating them entirely by 2010. But demands for stronger and faster
action rose in June after five pit bulls escaped from a yard and bodily
dismembered Maria Berthelot, 86, during an evening walk.
The hue-and-cry continued when panhandler Jeremie Acquemin, 20,
of Rouen, was convicted in August of setting his pit bull on three people
who refused to give him spare change, plus a police officer who
intervened. All four victims were hospitalized.
Similar incidents occur in the U.S. almost every day, but are so
common that they rarely attract more than local notice.
Police officer Didier Lecourbe, in the depressed Paris suburb of
Aubervilliers, warned Manchester Guardian correspondent Jon Henley in
September that just banning some dog breeds wouldn't solve the problem.
"Now that the authorities have cracked down on pit bulls and the
rest, apes look like the new weapon of choice," Lecourbe explained,
estimating that as many as 500 Barbary apes--actually a subspecies of
baboon--have been smuggled into France within the past two years. Native
to Gibraltar, Morocco, and Algeria, they are brought back by ethnic
North Africans now living in France, after visits to relatives still in
North Africa.
"There are dozens of them," Lecourbe continued. "Kids take them
out on leads, and even carry baby monkeys around in nappies. But they can
be very dangerous indeed," tending to make leaping facial bites.
"We've heard of monkey-fights being run in housing project
basements," Lecourbe added.
Whether or not baboon-fighting catches on, dogfights have gone
global, and seem to be far bigger business now than at any time since
1905, when Jack London used the success of his novel White Fang, about a
wolf hybrid who is stolen and forced to fight, to lead a successful drive
to expell dogfighting from respectable sports pages.
Dogfighting had been a staple of early sporting sheets since advent
of mass literacy and high-speed web printing coincided with the heyday of
Kit Burns' Tavern at 273 Water Street, Manhattan. Burns' Tavern was the
Madison Square Garden of dogfighting, but was also recently recalled by
New York Times historian David W. Dunlap as "one of the foulest grog shops
within staggering distance of the East River wharves."
According to Edward Winslow Martin in his 1868 illustrated tract
Secrets of the Great City, Burns' Tavern nightly attracted "a crowd of
brutal wretches whose conduct stamps them as beneath the struggling
beasts."
But despite Martin's outrage, even the American SPCA, founded
nearby in 1869, couldn't close Burns' Tavern or accomplish much else to
stop dogfighting until Jack London loaned his two-fisted influence to the
Band of Mercy children's crusade against animal fighting of all kinds begun
by Massa-chusetts SPCA founder George Angell.
At that, dogfighting before rowdy crowds of gamblers remained
legal in much of the U.S. beyond London's death. As late as 1921, along
the route that the fictional White Fang was dragged from Santa Clara,
California, to the dogfighting pits of Alaska and the Yukon, touts built
The Doghouse, a dogfighting stadium on the waterfront at Langley,
Washington. The dogfights reputedly ended at that location within just a
few years, as they drew too much attention to the building's parallel role
as a speakeasy.
The Doghouse saloon is still in business, many ownership changes later.

Organized crime

The modern history of organized crime in the U.S. began with
Prohibition-era rumrunning. The major criminal syndicates diversified from
the liquor traffic into gambling, loan-sharking, prostitution, and
drugs, and became seriously involved in dogfighting only recently, as an
apparent outgrowth of acquiring pit bulls for guard dogs.
The Old Country mafia historically focused on extortion--but
mobsters in Naples and Sicily have readily copied each U.S. underworld
success.
"In recent years, the [Italian] mafia has organized illegal horse
races, trafficked in exotic species, and even rustled cattle," San
Francisco Chronicle foreign service correspondent Adolfo Sansolini reported
from Rome on September 15. "But the most lucrative mafia activity is
dogfighting, which law enforcement authorities say is now an estimated
$500 million-a-year business."
As many as 5,000 dogs per year are reportedly killed in Italian
fighting rings. Countless more dogs--and other animals--are torn apart by
fighting dogs in training.
Gangsters heading south for the winter have also brought increasing
levels of organization and sophistication to dogfighting in South Africa,
where it has long been practiced by the underclasses, of both African and
Afrikans descent, and Honduras, where it is legal and occurs at public
stadiums.
Organized dogfighting has spread as well from the U.S. into Canada,
as an adjunct to drug trafficking. The Ontario Provincial Police found
perhaps the biggest Canadian dogfighting training center to date during a
mid-July 2000 search for narcotics at a seemingly abandoned farm in Percy
Township, north of Cobourg. The Ontario SPCA took 29 pit bull terriers
into custody, who had not been given food or water in at least two days,
along with rabbits who were evidently raised to be live bait, while the
OPP seized exercise equipment and a stash of steroids.

Dope growers

Veteran U.S. dogfighting investigators, like chief dog warden Tom
Skeldon of Lucas County, Ohio, learned long ago that related drug charges
bring offenders the most prison time--so Skeldon wasn't disappointed in
August 1999 when Lucas Country sheriff's deputies ended his multi-year
surveillance of suspected dogfighter Otha Jones Jr., 30, by busting Jones
for cultivating marijuana that they spotted from a helicopter.
Already serving a four-year sentence for felonious assault, Jones
on July 21 drew another four years and six months on the marijuana charges
plus illegally possessing a firearm and dogfighting. The dogfighting
conviction was made possible by discoveries made during the drug raid.
An air search for marijuana plantations in early September nabbed
previously convicted marijuana dealer Benjamin Donald Butts, 39, of
Surry, Virginia--along with 29 allegedly mangy, malnourished adult pit
bulls and four puppies.
Hit with 33 counts of dogfighting, 33 cruelty counts, drug
charges and a charge of carrying a gun as a convicted felon, Butts on
September 6 confessed that he had organized dogfights and trained fighting
dogs.
The number of dogs seized from Butts was not unusually high.
On August 13, for example, in Booneville, Mississippi, Prentiss
County sheriff's deputies seized 30 pit bulls while arresting alleged
dogfighting trainers Wilson D. Watkins, 38, and Edward Haddox, 41.
On August 30, a multi-agency law enforcement task force nabbed 36
pit bulls while busting Darell Hunter, 27, on 41 counts of dogfighting
and one count of cruelty to his allegedly neglected 18-month-old son.
Suspects keep dogs
What happened next in the Butts case, however, was unusual:
Surry County District Court Judge Larry Palmer, at request of prosecutor
Gerald G. Poindexter, released Butts' 33 dogs back into his own custody,
--though Butts may be facing life in prison.
There was, however, one recent Virginia precedent. An April 12
raid by the Roanoke County Sheriff's office found 73 pit bulls chained to
trees and old car axles on property owned by North Carolina "pet
psychiatrist Tom Garner"--and another 19 pit bulls on neighboring land
belonging to alleged dogfighting trainer Kyle Arthur Pearce.
Evidence found during the Pearce bust led U.S. federal agents in
late September to the home of his former housemate, Philip William
Reynolds, publisher of the underground American Gamedog Times magazine
plus an accompanying web site.
Five pit bulls and alleged dogfighting paraphernalia were seized
from Reynolds, against whom charges are reportedly pending.
Back in April, however, during the initial raid, "Garner showed
up at the site where the dogs were chained while police were
investigating," wrote Matt Chittum of the Roanoke Times. "Garner claimed
ownership of most of the dogs," Chittum continued, "and said he raised
them to be sold as pets. An affidavit filed with the search warrant that
authorized the raid, however, said Garner is known to the USDA as 'a
breeder of pit bull dogs sold to dogfighters.' Veterinary records found
during the investigation indicate Pearce had several dogs treated for
'injuries consistent with those inflicted in organized dogfighting,' the
search warrant says. Garner paid those bills, according to the warrant.'"
Yet Garner was only charged with not licensing the dogs on his
property. Two dogs were held as evidence. The rest remained on chains.
Garner kept 71 of them, after paying $2,026 in fines.

The cost of care

Accused Humane Society of the U.S. program specialist Pat Wagner in
a September 14 alert on the Butts case, "The city doesn't want to take
financial responsibility for caring for these dogs while awaiting the
trial."
It was a plausible claim.
On May 6, the Humane Society of the Huron Valley in Superior
Township, Michigan, received 12 pit bulls seized from dogfighting
suspects Ronald J. Wroble, 33, of Canton, and Jeffrey D. Pepper, 36,
of Belleville. The pit bulls were held for six weeks as evidence. A
dozen animals were killed to clear cage space for them, cutting into
anticipated adoption revenue, and the pit bulls' upkeep cost $500 a week,
HSHV cruelty investigator Stacie Dugas told Ann Arbor News staff reporter
Susan L. Oppat.
That was cheap, as pit bull holding goes. In Pueblo, Colorado,
Pueblo Animal League director Shelley Tipple told Denver Post staff writer
Jim Hughes, the kenneling bill for 41 pit bulls seized in June from
alleged dogfighter Brian Speer was expected to reach $14,000 within six
weeks, and $90,000 if the case remained in court for a year.
"They've chewed up about 20 hoses. They're bored," Tipple
explained. "They're also tearing holes in the sides of their cages to get
to the other dogs. Soon they'll figure out how to dismantle the cages and
it will be a free-for-all."
The Speer case pit bulls were initially housed in rented space at a
greyhound track, but security concerns eventually forced the Pueblo Animal
League to bring them into the PAL shelter.
A hidden cost of keeping fighting dogs as evidence is physical
risk. In Asheville, North Carolina, for example, 12 pit bulls seized
last spring from alleged dogfighter Darrell Durham, 27, bit animal
services director Jim Medford and four of his staff. Durham drew 120 days
in jail. The dogs got death.
HSUS and PETA drummed up a storm of mail to Judge Palmer about the
Butts case. Someone in Florida reportedly offered $500 to underwrite care
of the dogs by anyone except Butts. The letters swayed Palmer several days
later to vacated his own previous release order, and to take the care of
the dogs under advisement until October 3.
PETA senior caseworker Daphna Nachminovitch recommended killing all
the dogs immediately. Prosecutor Poindexter, however, called the pups
"people-friendly," and hoped they could eventually be adopted.
The 33 pit bulls temporarily taken from Butts were held at three
different shelters. Four were stolen almost immediately from the shelter
at Isle of Wight, Virginia.
That too is a familiar pattern. Several times per month ANIMAL
PEOPLE hears of "fighting" breed dogs vanishing from shelters, sometimes
with the collusion of corrupt shelter staff. In early September someone
even took a pair of pit bulls from the Dog Adoption League shelter and the
county animal control shelter in Santa Barbara, California; apparently
fought them, possibly against each other; and brought the wounded dogs
back after the weekend.

Hot in Florida

A July 14 raid on a dogfight in West Palm Beach, Florida,
encapsuled all the elements of dogfighting as it continues, 95 years after
Jack London hoped to end it forever.
The raid came three days after one Kendall Gadsen surrendered to
sheriff's deputies in East Fort Myers, Florida. An investigation of
skeletal remains of dogs discovered along a road in East Fort Myers had led
to the seizure of videotapes from an undisclosed location, which according
to Charlotte County Sheriff's Office spokesperson Chuck Ellis, "showed at
least four different fights at different parts of the day and different
parts of different counties. We identified Mr. Gadsen as a participant,
actually inside the ring, baiting and fighting the dogs."
Sixty-five people were apprehended in the West Palm Beach raid, of
whom 53 were charged only with watching a dogfight, a misdemeanor. Among
them were Palm Beach County corrections deputies Alton Harrell, 31, and
Reginald Mickens, 32.
Palm Beach County Judge Cory Ciklin on September 25 offered to
allow any defendant without prior convictions to plead guilty in exchange
for a sentence of 12 months on probation, 200 hours of community service,
a prohibition on keeping any pet or being around a pet except in the
presence of another adult, and a donation of $1,000 to an approved animal
rescue charity. Only one defendant immediately accepted.
Six other defendants were charged with felony dogfighting.
Two pit bulls seized as evidence against the six were stolen from
the West Palm Beach Animal Care and Control shelter during the night of
July 29- July 30.
No charges have been announced against the remaining six attendees.
--M.C.