RICHMOND VA : Make the Brutal Bloodsport of Cockfighting a Felony! Support S.B. 1190
- by: Dave O'Connell, Senior Pets Program
- recipient: The Honorable William Roscoe Reynolds, Senator, Senate of Virginia
A BILL to amend and reenact § 3.1-796.125 of the Code of Virginia, relating to the fighting of cocks and other animals; penalty.
Sat., Feb. 24, 2007: VIRGINIA REFUSES TO STRENGTHEN COCKFIGHTING PENALTIES! General Assembly Adjourns! House Bill 3004 Dies Without Passage!
NEW LEGISLATURE CONVENES JANUARY, 2008! END COCKFIGHTING IN VIRGINIA!
View the complete text of Senate Bill 1190 here! (as amended by the Senate)
Stop the cruel, bloodthirsty, and corrupt practice of cockfighting in the Commonwealth of Virginia!
View horrifying streaming video of Humane Society of the United States enforcers raiding a sordid Virginia cockfighting pit here!
Find your local Virginia legislator here!
Contact the Members of the House Subcommittee on Criminal Law where the Bill is scheduled for the Mon., Feb 12, 2007, docket!
Email Chairman H. Morgan Griffith here
Email Member David B. Albo here
Email Member Robert B. Bell here
Email Member Benjamin L. Cline here
Email Member C. Todd Gilbert here
Email Member Robert Hurt here
Email Member Kenneth R. Melvin here
Email Member Brian J. Moran here
Email Member Katherine B. Wadell here
Email Member Vivien E. Watts here
Thank the Members of the Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources for referring S.B. 1190 to the full General Assembly (1/29/2007)!
Email Chairman Charles R. Hawkins here
Email Member John H. Chichester here
Email Member Patricia S. Ticer here
Email Member Mary Margaret Whipple here
Email Member Emmett W. Hanger, Jr. here
Email Member John Watkins here
Email Member and Bill Chief Patron William Roscoe Reynolds here
Email Member Phillip P. Puckett here
Email Member Frank M. Ruff, Jr. here
Email Member Harry B. Blevins here
Email Member R. Creigh Deeds here
Email Member Ken Cuccinelli II here
Email Member Mark D. Obenshain here
Email Member Mamie E. Locke here
Email Member Ryan T. McDougle here
Email Governor Tim Kaine here 
Email Lt. Governor Bill Bolling hereContact the Members of the Virginia Senate here!
Contact the Members of the Virginia House of Delegates here!
Visit the Humane Society of the United States here!
Cockfighting in Virginia
Tuesday, February 6, 2007; Page A16
Read online: http://tinyurl.com/yux7jf
The Jan. 28 Metro article "Raid Shines Harsh Light on Rural Va.," about cockfighting in Virginia, presented an appalling picture of how some human beings amuse themselves at the expense of other creatures.
It is a sad commentary that an advocate for Latino rights and a state delegate both seemed more concerned about the perception created by cockfighting legislation than its intended effects. The legislature should pass the bill making the crime a felony, and officers should enforce it without concern for who the perpetrators are.
The gamecocks being tortured do not care whether the people around the pits are Hispanic, white, black or otherwise. Neither should the commonwealth.
ARI M. SOLOWBrunswick
Cockfighting Penalties Diluted in Senate Bill
By Richmond Notebook
Friday, February 2, 2007; Page B02
Read online: http://tinyurl.com/3574mv
The Virginia Senate weakened a bill yesterday that would increase the penalties for betting on or charging admission to cockfighting events.
The measure would have elevated the offense to a Class 6 felony and brought the possibility of jail time. Under current law, the offense is a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of a $500 fine.
Changes made to the bill on the Senate floor yesterday would elevate the offense to a Class 1 misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of a year in jail. The bill still must pass the House of Delegates.
-- Amy Gardner
Senate Committee Backs Higher Fine for Cockfight Gamblers
By Richmond Notebook
Tuesday, January 30, 2007; Page B04
Read online: http://tinyurl.com/2xgccu
AVirginia Senate committee agreed yesterday to raise the penalty for cockfighting to a Class 6 felony.
But the panel stopped short of expanding the penalty to all participants of cockfighting events and those who raise gamecocks. Instead, as is the case now, only gambling on or charging admission to cockfighting would be illegal, with a maximum fine of $2,500 and five years in jail. Under current law, the penalty is a Class 3 misdemeanor, with a maximum fine of $500 but no jail time.
The measure, approved 7 to 5 by the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Committee yesterday, now heads to the full Senate.
-- Amy Gardner
Bill to make cockfighting a felony wins Va. panel's OK
By Bob Lewis
AP Political Writer
January 29, 2007
Read online: http://tinyurl.com/2qvulq
RICHMOND, Va. -- The stealthy bloodsport of cockfighting, a misdemeanor now in Virginia, would become a felony under a bill that won narrow approval Monday from a Senate committee.
On a 7-5 vote, the Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources advanced Sen. Roscoe Reynolds' bill to a Senate floor vote after several provisions broadening its scope were deleted.
On a voice vote, the same panel overwhelmingly rejected legislation that would have required veterinarians to report to state authorities dogs with injuries consistent with illegal dogfighting rings.
The cockfighting bill targets people who stage all-day tournaments that pit roosters bred and trained to fight and outfitted with razor-edged steel talons on their legs.
"It's brutal, it's bloodthirsty and it's the sort of behavior that serves only to increase the violence and the coarseness of our world today," said Robin Starr, executive director of the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Virginia's lax punishment for cockfighting makes it a magnet for cockfighters from nearby states that punish it more severely, the bill's supporters told the committee.
Cockfighting in Virginia is illegal now only if admission is charged to watch the fights or if prizes are awarded for the animals that survive. The committee eliminated provisions that would have made possessing and training fighting chickens a crime, but made existing offenses felonies.
A Jan. 21 raid in Mecklenburg County, on the North Carolina border, resulted in the arrests of 122 people, about 75 percent of them from other states, mostly North Carolina, said Danny Fox, the county's sheriff.
Twenty-two of those arrested were illegal aliens whom the Department of Homeland Security is deporting, and many of them were members of alien gangs such as the Mexican Mafia and MS-13, Fox said.
Authorities also seized 127 birds in the raid, said Nora Miller, the Mecklenburg commonwealth's attorney. Six birds had died and four more had to be euthanized from horrific wounds--their windpipes ripped open or their entrails exposed through gashed thoraxes, Reynolds said.
Kathy Strouse, a lobbyist for a statewide organization of local animal control officers, said cockfighting is always involved with more serious offenses.
"I have never read of a cockfighting arrest that did not involve a host of collateral crimes: gambling, drugs, alcohol, firearms, child endangerment, assault up to and including homicide," Strouse said.
Children were present at the Mecklenburg fight, staged in a remote outbuilding, Miller said. Local, state and federal officials who conducted the raid also found powder and crack cocaine.
No witnesses spoke against the measure, but several senators on the panel voiced reservations about it.
Sen. John Watkins said Reynolds' bill would criminalize the sort of frolic he pursued as a child growing up on a farm.
"Every now and then I would throw two anxious roosters in the same vicinity, particularly when there were a bunch of hens around, just to see what would happen and nine times out of 10, they would fight," said Watkins, R-Powhatan. "Would I not be, at that point, in the commission of a felony?"
Sen. John H. Chichester questioned how authorities could discern fighting fowl from other roosters.
"How do you know that the game chicken wandering around my house there, whether I'm training it or not training it or is there as an ornament or it's just chasing people up and down the sidewalk," said Chichester, R-Stafford.
Cockfighting is legal in only two states, New Mexico and Louisiana, said John P. Goodwin, who oversees animal-fighting issues for the Humane Society of the United States. Strong efforts are backing legislation in both states this year to outlaw it, Goodwin said.
Reynolds said that among states with laws against cockfighting, only Mississippi's are more lenient than Virginia's.
Sen. Benjamin Lambert's dogfighting bill died after Democrats and Republicans on the panel questioned the fairness of subjecting veterinarians not involved in dogfighting to civil fines. They also questioned how reliably injuries from ordinary dogfights could be distinguished from those caused by criminally staged dogfights.
Supporters of the bill said it would isolate people who breed and train fighting dogs and organize the lucrative and secretive canine death matches.
We, the undersigned, endorse the following petition:
WHEREAS, the cruel, bloodthirsty, and corrupt practice of cockfighting, currently a misdemeanor in the Commonwealth of Virginia, poses grave risks to the moral, ethical, legal, and economic fabric of the great Commonwealth of Virginina; and
WHEREAS, the depravity of this vicious "sport" was amply documented in the Sunday, January 28, 2007, article in The Washington Post, "Raid Puts Harsh Light on Rural Va." (Page C03, http://tinyurl.com/2g4g64), stating in part: "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.)"; and
WHEREAS, the Commonwealth of Virginia, far from a third world backwater, has traditionally been a leader in the forefront of democracy, technology, commerce, and the birthplace of human rights; and
WHEREAS, the hideous criminal spectacle of cockfighting, perpetrated by howling spectators clutching fistsful of blood-spattered cash, is an affront to the dignity of the great Commonwealth of Virginia and the entire nation;
WHEREAS, Virginia Senate Bill 1190 (http://tinyurl.com/2nq23o; see also http://tinyurl.com/2udtnf) seeks to amend and reenact § 3.1-796.125 of the Code of Virginia, stating in pertinent part:
"A. Any person engaging in fighting of cocks or other animals, except dogs, is guilty of a Class 6 felony.
"B. Any person who possesses, owns, trains, or sells any animal for the purpose of fighting is guilty of a Class 6 felony.
"C. Attendance at the fighting of cocks or other animals shall consistute a Class 1 misdemeanor."
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that Senate Bill 1190 should be swiftly passed, enacted, and signed into law, that Virginia's unique and vital role in American history may not be shamefully degraded; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the dedicated law enforcement professionals of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and all its counties, do their utmost to prosecute animal torture and gambling on blood sports, appropriately to the duly sworn officers of a civilized state; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the attached signatures be respectfully presented to The Honorable William Roscoe Reynolds, bill sponsor, and the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that The Honorable William Roscoe Reynolds be thanked and commended for contributing this vital bill to the agenda of the General Assembly.
Senator Wm. Roscoe Reynolds
Capitol Office Senate of VirginiaP.O. Box 396
Richmond, VA 23218
Email*: district20@sov.state.va.us
Legislative Assistant: Anne Lackey
Fax: (804) 698-7651
Constituent Hotline: (800) 889-0229
(Session Only)
District Office P.O. Box 404Martinsville, VA 24114-0404 Email*: roscoe@digdat.com Legislative Assistant: Anne Lackey
Committees Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources Courts of Justice
Local Government
Privileges and Elections
Legislation Sponsored Chief Patron Chief Co-Patron
Co-Patron
20th District Carroll County (All); Floyd County (All); Galax City (All); Grayson County (Part); Henry County (All); Martinsville City (All); Patrick County (All); Wythe County (Part) Biographical Information Born in Martinsville, Virginia, May 21, 1942; educated at Duke University (A.B., Political Science); Washington and Lee University (LL.B.); lawyer; member: Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church; Member of House of Delegates: 1986-97. Member of Senate: 1997-. * When contacting by email, please include full name, address, and phone number.
Raid Puts Harsh Light on Rural Va.
Number of Arenas Grows as State Seeks to Heighten Penalties
By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 28, 2007; C03
http://tinyurl.com/2g4g64
A Humane Society staffer cradles a chicken discovered during the raid. Dozens of birds were found dead or dying.
Photo Credit: Humane Society Photo
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.079183808
http://tinyurl.com/2nq23o
Offered January 10, 2007 Prefiled January 10, 2007
A BILL to amend and reenact § 3.1-796.125 of the Code of Virginia, relating to the fighting of cocks and other animals; penalty.
----------Patrons-- Reynolds and Houck ----------Referred to Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources ----------Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:
1. That § 3.1-796.125 of the Code of Virginia is amended and reenacted as follows:
§ 3.1-796.125. Fighting cocks or other animals; attendance at fighting; penalty.
A. Any person engaging in the fighting of cocks or other animals, except dogs, for money, prize or anything of value, or betting or wagering money or anything of value on the result of such fight, shall be is guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor 6 felony.
B. Any person who possesses, owns, trains, or sells any animal for the purpose of fighting is guilty of a Class 6 felony.
C. Attendance at the fighting of cocks or other animals, except dogs, where an admission fee is charged, directly or indirectly, shall constitute a Class 3 1 misdemeanor.
C. Attendance at an exhibition of the fighting of dogs shall constitute a Class 1 misdemeanor.
2. That the provisions of this act may result in a net increase in periods of imprisonment or commitment. Pursuant to § 30-19.1:4, the estimated amount of the necessary appropriation cannot be determined for periods of imprisonment in state adult correctional facilities and is $0 for periods of commitment to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice.
Legislative Information SystemEmail List of Virginia State Senators:
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Capitol Offices List of Virginia State Senators:
http://tinyurl.com/ynjogt
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